DWIN  BATEMAN  MORRIS 


OUR  MISS 
YORK 


Author  of 
Blue  Anchor  Inn,  The  Millionaire,  Etc. 


Illustrated  by 
COLES  PHILLIPS  AND 
RALPH  L.  BOYER 


THE    PENN    PUBLISHING 

COMPANY  PHILADELPHIA 

1916 


COPYRIGHT 
1916  BY 
THE  PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 


Our  Miss  York 


Contents 

I.  THE  OLD  GARDEN  —  SPRING    ...        9 

II.  THE  GARDEN  —  SUMMER  .        .        .        .18 

III.  THE  GARDEN  —  AUTUMN          ...      29 

IV.  THE  NEW  GARDEN          ....      34 
V.  STANDSTILL  STREET          ....      49 

VI.  RUSTED  COGS  ......      64 

VII.  THE  PLAY  CALLED  JULIUS  CESAR    .        .       70 

VIII.  THE  THING  TO  Do  WITH  A  KEY    .        .      82 

IX.  THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE  ...      96 

X.  CAVEAT  VENDOR      .....     112 

XI.  A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES         .         .         .123 

XII.  THE  RIVER  NIGHT  .....     132 

XIII.  BAY  CITY        ......     139 

XIV.  DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT      ....     149 
XV.  DAVID  —  AND  No  GOLIATH       .        .        .172 

XVI.  THE  RAINBOW         .....     192 

XVII.  THE  UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER          .     202 

XVIII.  THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY          .         .211 

XIX.  THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN         .         .         .     220 

XX.  WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID         .         .     228 

XXI.  THE  BYSTANDER      .....     240 


2229012 


XXII. 
XXIII. 
XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 

XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 
XXXI. 

XXXII. 

or 

£8 

do 

£11 


CONTENTS 

FALLING  SHORT  . 

THE  HIVE 

THE  EXCEEDING  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 
THE  GIFTS  OF  GODS  .  .  . 
THE  CHILD  .  . 

A  GRACEFUL  EXIT        c        .        . 
FEVER-HEAT         . 
THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE    . 
THE  YELLOW  RIVER     .         .        . 
STRAW-GRASPING          .    .     . 
EVEN  ... 


244 

255 

265 

275 
281 
289 
298 
312 

3*5 

339 
348 


£91 

£0£ 
I  IS 
0££ 


Illustrations 

PAGE 

Frontispiece 
"  OF  COURSE  WE  SHALL  Miss  You  "     .        .        .26 

"  You  ARE  A  VERY  SUDDEN  PERSON  "     .        .  75 

u  HAVE  You  COME  TO  LIFE  ? "  ,        .        .     161 

"  IT  OUGHT  TO  BE  MORE  COSTLY  "...    235 


Our  Miss  York 


Our  Miss  York 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  OLD  GARDEN — SPRING 

FROM  many  points  of  view  it  was  a  shocking 
costume  for  a  young  and  attractive  girl  to 
wear  ;  but  it  might  be  said,  if  it  is  a  proper  statement 
to  make,  that  she  was  the  more  attractive  on  that 
account.  The  stockings  she  wore  stopped  at,  or  a 
little  below,  her  shins,  and  accentuated  their  brevity 
by  a  pink  band  at  the  top.  The  skirt,  if  it  could  be 
called  a  skirt,  approached  her  knees  as  a  limit,  but 
never  quite  reached  them.  And  between  showed 
her  own  fair  figure,  round  and  decidedly  pink.  She 
was  not  conscious  of  any  impropriety  in  her  attire,  and 
rocked  in  her  chair  on  the  uneven  bricks,  humming 
blithely  to  herself.  For  she  was  but  three  years  old ; 
and  her  mind  had  not  yet  grasped  all  the  intricacies 
of  the  scale  that  runs  between  proper  and  improper, 

9 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

nor  learned  the  difficult  art  of  knowing  when  to  be 
shocked  and  when  not  to  be  shocked. 

By  the  side  of  the  herring-bone  brick  walk  on 
which  her  tiny  chair  oscillated  with  a  regular  noise 
like  a  grandfather's  clock,  a  companionable  robin,  an 
old  friend  recently  returned  from  his  fashionable 
winter  in  the  South,  searched  persistently  over  the 
turt  lor  the  descendants  of  worms  he  had  eaten  in 
years  past.  He  paid  little  attention  to  her.  This 
had  been  his  home  long  before  it  had  been  hers. 
He  had  known  the  herring-bone  walk  almost  before 
it  had  lost  the  first  flush  of  its  youth  and  taken  on 
its  tinge  of  mossy  green.  The  parallel  lines  of  box 
hedge  running  beside  it  had  been  familiar  partitions 
in  his  summer  house  for  many  a  day.  Many  a 
thousand  times  had  he  started  at  the  creak  of  the 
garden  gate,  and,  as  it  closed  automatically  upon  re- 
quest of  the  weight  attached  to  it,  speculated  with  a 
primitive  caution  on  the  purpose  of  the  stranger  who 
had  entered. 

And  when  the  tiny  child  had  first  come,  with  her 
pink  hair  ribbon  and  her  pink  sash  and  her  pink 
cheeks,  he  had  looked  at  her  somewhat  askance,  as 
an  invader  in  his  domain.  But  they  had  presently 

grown  used  to  each  other  and  he  had  agreed  to  the 

10 


THE  OLD  GARDEN— SPRING 

establishment  of  an  entente  cordiale  which  permitted 
them  to  engage  in  the  pursuit  of  happiness  over  the 
same  area.  And  as  his  pursuit  of  happiness  con- 
sisted in  searching  for  worms,  and  hers  in  inducing 
sleep  in  various  well  beloved  doll-babies,  their  aims 
did  not  clash. 

Just  now  the  sun  was  sinking  low  and  she  was 
giving  way  to  the  fatigue  of  the  long  day.  A  faint 
breeze  blew  from  the  west,  carrying  with  it  the  touch 
of  fragrance  of  freshly-bloomed  flowers.  A  stray 
wood-thrush,  perching  himself  somewhere  out  of 
sight  in  the  trees,  sang  his  liquid  song  to  hen  Her 
doll  lay  in  her  arms.  She  crooned  sleepily. 

"  Wock-a-bye  bee-by 
Wock-a-bye  bee-by 
Ta-adle  will  fall, 
Wock-a-bye  bee-by." 

The  robin  hopped  confidently  up  the  path.  Over- 
head, against  the  even  blue  of  the  sky,  she  saw  other 
birds  flying.  Her  voice  trailed  off  into  silence. 
Childish  thoughts  passed  through  that  young  mind  : 
thoughts  of  vague  golden  days  to  come  ;  of  possible 
adventurous  journeys  in  street-cars ;  of  visits  to  a 

place  once  seen  where  iron  dogs  guarded  the  front 

ii 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

lawn  ;  of  great  soap-bubbles  to  be  blown  upon  the 
occasion  of  the  next  rainy  day.  Glorious  reveries 
these ! 

So  absorbed  was  she  in  these  colorful  thoughts 
that  she  did  not  note  the  opening  of  the  door  behind 
her  and  did  not  therefore  see  the  gentleman  who 
stood  there  more  than  a  little  startled  at  her  small 
presence.  A  red-faced  gentleman  of  about  fifty  he 
was — immaculately  dressed  in  a  check  suit  of  dis- 
tinctly audible  pattern,  with  a  faultlessly  arranged 
tie  of  bright  hue  and  faultlessly  shining  shoes.  He 
was  of  that  aggressive  type  one  calls  man-about- 
town,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  noted  in  many  places 
for  his  poise  and  self-possession.  And  yet  he  stood 
there  now  in  a  fit  of  buck  ague,  terror-stricken  at  the 
sight  of  this  tiny  being  beneath  its  pink  hair  ribbon 
— afraid  to  retreat,  unwilling  to  advance.  It  was  the 
first  time  he  had  been  alone  in  its  presence.  He  did 
not  wish  to  ignore  it,  yet  what  remark  could  he  ad- 
dress to  it?  He  was  just  about  to  steal  silently 
away  when  a  nurse,  bearing  the  child's  supper,  ap- 
peared and  rescued  him. 

While  the  supper  was  being  arranged  in  the  proper 
manner  on  a  tiny  table  set  on  the  bricks,  he  seated 

himself  in  his  big  armchair  on  the  porch  and  took 

12 


THE  OLD  GARDEN— SPRING 

a  cigar  from  its  case.     But  he  did  not  smoke.     He 
held  it  in  his  hand  staring  at  it  thoughtfully. 

"Miss  Martin,"  he  said  to  the  nurse,  as  she 
ascended  the  steps. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Lacey." 

"  How  can  I  go  on  with  this  confounded  business  ? 
Me,  a  guardian  of  a  child — a  baby  !  Why,  I  am  as 
well  fitted  for  it  as  I  am  to  be  a  snake  charmer. 
Suppose  I  came  out  on  this  porch  some  day  and  that 
organism  out  there  began  to  cry.  What  the  dickens 
could  I  do  ?  How  could  I  stop  it  ?  " 

Miss  Martin  laughed.  "  You  don't  have  to. 
That's  what  I'm  for." 

He  drew  a  heavy  sigh. 

"  But  there  might  come  a  time,"  he  asserted, 
"  there  might  come  a  time.  I  should  want  to 
do  the  proper  thing  by  my  sister's  child.  Con- 
found it ! "  he  cried,  "  what  sin  have  I  committed 
that  I  should  be  saddled  with  a  baby — when  up 
until  a  month  ago  I  hardly  knew  such  a  thing  ex- 
isted." 

"  It's  your  own  niece,"  she  reminded  him. 

"  Yes,  yes.  Blood  is  thicker  than  water,"  he  ex- 
claimed. 

He  gazed  thoughtfully  at  the  end  of  his  cigar> 

13 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Well,"  he  said  at  length,  gloomily,  "  you  are  my 
hope  and  my  refuge." 

She  smiled  and  rose  to  go.  She  had  been  a  hos- 
pital nurse,  to  whom  after  the  news  of  the  death  of 
this  sister  and  brother-in-law,  and  of  his  own  conse- 
quent inheritance  of  their  parental  responsibility  he 
had  turned,  in  a  state  of  panic,  and  persuaded  to 
accept  the  position  of  nurse,  governess  and  mother 
to  the  child. 

He  gazed  gloomily  at  the  infant.  He  had  not 
strained  her  to  his  bosom  from  choice.  She  had 
come  like  some  dread  ailment  that  there  was  no 
avoiding.  She  interfered  with  his  quiet  and  his 
comfort.  He  had  had  to  give  up  his  bedroom  to  her 
because  it  was  sunny.  Her  toys  were  in  his  library. 
And  he  did  not  love  children.  He  rose  and  de- 
scended the  steps  with  a  gouty  heaviness  and  visited 
the  first  bloom  of  a  red  poppy  in  the  flower  garden 
beside  the  house. 

He  had  planted  this  particular  kind  of  poppy 
many  times,  but  this  was  the  first  occasion  on  which 
he  had  been  rewarded  with  a  bloom.  He  returned  to 
the  house  and  expressed  a  wish  rather  glumly  that 
the  child  should  not  be  allowed  to  touch  the  flower. 

When  Margaret  had  finished  her  meal,  she  took 


THE  OLD  GARDEN— SPRING 

off  her  bib  and  folded  it  up  carefully  in  an  approved 
manner.  The  little  spoon  she  put  in  the  little  cup, 
and  the  cup  she  put  in  the  bowl  and  the  bowl  she 
placed  upon  the  folded  bib.  Her  ritual  of  tidiness 
was  then  complete,  and  she  was  ready  for  bed. 

At  that  moment  the  latch  of  the  front  gate  clicked 
and  there  appeared  on  the  bricks  of  the  walk  a  very 
large  man  and  a  little  four-year-old  boy  in  a  white 
sailor's  suit  and  black  patent  leather  pumps.  The 
light  of  recognition  was  in  Margaret's  eye.  She 
trotted  eagerly  down  the  path,  her  shoes  clicking 
on  the  bricks,  running  very  fast  until  she  got  almost 
to  them,  and  then  stopping  suddenly,  abashed  at  her 
own  boldness,  with  her  hands  behind  her. 

"  Hello,  Margaret,"  said  the  boy,  in  a  deep  voice. 

"  Hello,  HI'  David  Bruce,"  she  returned,  with  some 
shyness,  but  favoring  him  with  his  full  name. 

The  boy  covered  up  his  embarrassment  by  run- 
ning away  and  swinging  on  the  front  gate,  but 
returned  presently  with  a  show  of  nonchalance  and 
an  eye  roving  in  search  of  diversion.  He  seized  the 
other  child  by  the  hand  presently  and  announced 
that  he  was  going  with  her  to  pick  flowers.  Mar- 
garet looked  at  Miss  Martin  for  permission,  which 
that  lady  gave. 

IS 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Pick  daffodils — with  long  stems,"  she  ex- 
plained. 

The  children  went  hand  in  hand  down  the  gravel 
path. 

Margaret  thrust  her  hand  down  deep  and  plucked 
a  flower  with  a  long  stem.  The  boy  David  did  the 
same.  She  went  on  picking  carefully  and  method- 
ically. He  soon  tired,  and  found  it  more  diverting 
to  pull  the  flowers  with  no  stems  at  all. 

"  Oh,  Davie  boy,  they  haven't  any  stems,"  she  re- 
monstrated. 

"  Don't  like  stems,"  he  observed. 

He  stalked  to  the  end  of  the  path  and  gazed  at 
the  red  poppy. 

"  I'm  going  to  pick  the  red  one." 

"  No,"  she  cried,  aghast. 

He  observed  the  flower  thoughtfully.  Fascinated 
at  his  daring  she  stood  behind  him  watching  him. 
Presently  he  swooped  down  and  tore  it  from  its 
stem.  Looking  it  over  curiously  for  a  moment,  he 
threw  it  down  on  the  ground.  There  they  found 
them  after  a  while,  Margaret  endeavoring  to  plant 
the  poor  poppy  again  in  the  ground,  and  David, 
standing  with  both  feet  in  the  daffodils  watching  her 

interestedly. 

16 


THE  OLD  GARDEN— SPRING 

"There  you  have  it,"  said  David's  father,  "the 
Waster  and  the  Producer." 

Whereupon  he  immediately  took  the  Waster 
home.  Mr.  Lacey  made  a  wry  face  and,  turning 
ill-humoredly  upon  his  heel,  stalked  into  the  house, 
where  he  growled  and  grumbled  for  the  rest  of  the 
evening.  Providence  had  visited  his  house  with  a 
plague. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  GARDEN — SUMMER 

SUMMER  in  Mr.  Lacey's  garden.  But  many  a 
spring  has  passed  since  the  days  that  he 
brooded  over  his  responsibility  for  the  small  child. 
There  is  no  small  child  now.  But  a  slim  girl  of 
eighteen  cares  for  an  old  gentleman  who  sits  in  his 
chair  beneath  the  shade  of  the  trees,  reading  his 
papers  or  testily  rapping  on  the  balustrade  of  the 
porch  for  some  one  to  come  and  minister  to  his 
wants.  In  sixteen  years  he  had  turned  from  a  hale 
middle-aged  man  to  a  mere  feeble,  tottering  invalid. 
It  is  ten  years  now  since  he  gave  up  his  business 
in  the  city — or  since  he  was  rather  blasted  from  that 
business  by  an  upheaval  that  left  him  high  and  dry 
and  far  away,  with  all  his  confidence,  his  nerve  and 
his  poise  gone  forever.  When  he  had  been  content 
in  his  broker's  office  to  sit  still  and  take  his  steady 
commission  for  buying  and  selling,  buying  and  sell- 
ing, all  the  year  round,  he  had  grown  rich.  But 
when  he  decided  that  he  would  join  the  throng  of 

operators,  the  people  who  placed  their  money  on 

18 


THE  GARDEN— -SUMMER 

the  turn  of  the  wheel,  he  plunged  presently  down 
the  abyss  on  whose  edge  he  had  stood  safe  and  un- 
harmed all  the  years  of  his  life.  It  was  a  great  boom 
in  copper  that  caught  him.  He  thought  he  saw  a 
chance  for  his  hundred  thousand  dollars  to  become 
a  million.  He  thought  he  had  plotted  correctly  the 
future  of  the  market.  But  he  parted  from  his  hun- 
dred thousand,  and  more  that  he  had  borrowed,  just 
at  the  wrong  time,  and  in  eight  days  not  a  penny  of 
it  was  left.  He  sold  his  seat  in  the  stock  exchange 
— the  seat  that  he  had  inherited  from  his  father — and 
in  the  end  saved  enough  money  out  of  the  wreck  to 
barely  keep  him.  All  of  his  poise  and  most  of  his 
self-esteem  gone,  he  retired  to  his  home,  which 
thereafter  he  rarely  left  for  any  cause  whatever. 

The  child  Margaret  was  left  to  her  own  devices. 
Miss  Martin  was  dismissed  immediately  as  being  too 
expensive.  Margaret  was  just  at  an  age  when  she 
could  take  care  of  herself,  and  so  long  as  she  did 
not  annoy  him,  he  was  well  pleased.  Few  play- 
mates came  up  the  path  between  the  box  hedges,  for 
they  annoyed  the  aging  man.  The  child's  diver- 
sion was  with  the  old  negro  mammy  in  the  kitchen. 
There  she  would  stand  on  a  wooden  box  by  the 
kitchen  sink,  a  long  checkered  apron  about  her 

19 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

neck,  and  wash  dishes  and  pots  and  pans.  When 
she  grew  older  she  was  allowed  to  cook,  following 
old  Elizabeth's  guesswork  recipes.  And  then  on 
her  seventeenth  birthday  she  had  gone  to  Mr.  Lacey 
and  explained  with  a  certain  old-fashioned  serious- 
ness that  it  was  not  economical  to  order  food  from 
the  store  by  telephone  and  pay  for  it  when  the  bill 
came  at  the  end  of  the  month.  She  announced  that 
she  wanted  to  take  hold  of  the  household  and  do 
the  marketing.  The  old  gentleman  had  grunted 
doubtfully  but  had  handed  over  the  sum  she  named 
for  the  first  month's  allowance. 

That  was  the  only  means  by  which  she  had  in 
any  way  endeared  herself  to  him.  For  she  had  thus 
saved  him  money  and  at  the  same  time  managed  to 
give  him  better  food.  These  two  things  were  now 
the  only  avenues  of  approach  to  his  soul,  and  even 
they  did  not  extend  far  beneath  his  skin. 

Out  of  this  allowance  for  the  household,  the  girl 
saved  enough  for  her  clothes,  an  item  for  which 
heretofore  Mr.  Lacey  had  never  voluntarily  made  an 
appropriation.  This  saved  her  much  embarrassment, 
for  her  guardian  had  never  made  asking  for  favors 
pleasant,  and  seemed  to  have  a  masculine  inability 

to  realize  that  the  protecting  of  the  female  from  the 

20 


THE  GARDEN— SUMMER 

winter's  blast  requires  a  more  or  less  steady  outlay 
of  funds.  The  exigencies  of  the  case  required  that 
she  make  all  her  dresses  herself,  with  the  aid  of  a 
seamstress  who  came  in  by  the  day.  But  they  by 
no  means  suffered  on  that  account.  Indeed,  to  the 
youths,  who  now  began  to  come  and  sit  with  her  on 
the  stone  steps  in  the  moonlight,  they  could  not  have 
been  more  exquisite. 

As  the  old  gentleman  began  to  grow  older  and 
more  and  more  feeble,  she  saw,  with  an  insight 
somewhat  beyond  her  years,  that  there  would 
sooner  or  later  come  a  time  when  the  light  would 
be  snuffed  out  and  she  would  be  thrown  upon  her 
own  resources.  Therefore  one  afternoon  as  he  sat 
in  his  chair  beneath  the  trees,  wrapped  in  his  shawl 
against  the  light  summer  breeze,  she  took  her  sew- 
ing and  sat  down  beside  him.  He  looked  at  her 
distrustfully  with  his  beady  black  eyes. 

"  Well,  well,"  he  said,  touchily,  "  I  don't  have  to 
be  sat  with.  I'm  not  an  invalid." 

"  I  know,"  she  said,  and  went  on  featherstitching. 

He  continued  to  regard  her  resentfully. 

"  Guardian,"  she  observed,  presently,  "  hadn't  I 
better  be  thinking  of  a  way  to  earn  my  living?" 

He  struck  his  cane  down  into  the  turf. 

21 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"What's  this?"  he  exclaimed.  "Aren't  you  sat- 
isfied with  the  way  you  are  living  here  ?  " 

"  Perfectly.     But  this  can't  last  forever." 

"When  I  am  dead  and  gone,"  he  said  bluntly, 
"  it  is  time  to  think  of  those  things.  Don't  bury  me 
in  advance." 

She  continued  to  sew. 

"  I  could  perhaps  learn  something  to  fit  me  to  earn 
my  living.  I  could  perhaps  take  up  stenography." 

"  I  don't  want  you  to  be  a  stenographer,"  he 
blurted  out.  "  Stenographer  1  Do  you  suppose  I 
want  every  one  to  say  I  couldn't  support  you? 
Bah!" 

He  rose  unsteadily  to  his  feet.  He  pointed  to  the 
street  outside  the  garden  wall. 

"  Do  you  know  what  they  call  me  out  there  ? 
Down-and-out  Lacey  ! "  he  exclaimed.  "  Nothing 
would  please  them  better  than  to  say  my  niece  was 
supporting  me  by  the  labor  of  her  hands."  He 
shook  a  wavering  stick  at  the  street  beyond.  "  Vul- 
tures," he  cried,  "vultures!" 

He  tottered  to  the  steps  of  the  house.  She  put 
down  her  sewing  to  help  him.  He  passed  into  the 
house  saying  over  and  over  to  himself,  "  Down-and- 
out  Lacey !  Down-and-out  Lacey ! " 

22 


THE  GARDEN— SUMMER 

She  returned  and  sat  a  long  while  thoughtfully 
silent  under  the  trees.  Then  she  rose  and  walked 
slowly  toward  the  flower  garden,  bright  with  its 
burden  of  nasturtiums  and  its  regular  beds  of  zinnias 
and  larkspur  and  bachelor's  buttons ;  and  still 
brighter  beyond  with  golden  glow  and  startling  red 
amaryllis,  and  with  hollyhock  and  sunflowers  tower- 
ing above — all  like  a  very  rich  and  colorful  impres- 
sionist picture.  In  an  octagonal  pool  at  the  end  of 
the  gravel  path  bloomed  white  water-lilies,  their 
shining  wet  foliage  resting  on  the  water ;  and  five 
big  goldfish  scurried  about  among  their  stems. 
This  was  the  spot  she  came  to  for  companionship. 

Her  observing  eye  discovered  dead  leaves  to  be 
plucked  here,  and  insidious  weeds  to  be  exterminated 
there.  She  stooped  down  to  gather  nasturtiums 
that  must  be  picked  to  prevent  them  from  going  to 
seed.  A  step  sounded  on  the  gravel  behind  her. 
She  glanced  up. 

"  Hello,  David,"  she  said. 

He  took  off  his  hat  "  Perhaps  you  need  an 
assistant  gardener,"  he  suggested. 

"I  do.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  pick  a  few  nastur- 
tiums ?  " 

"  With  all  my  heart.    The  fewer  the  better." 

23 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

She  smiled.  He  sat  down  upon  a  convenient 
square  of  greensward  and  began  to  gather  flowers. 
At  least  he  picked  one  which  he  put  in  his  button- 
hole, and  another  which  he  twirled  in  his  fingers. 
He  watched  her  with  interest. 

"  You  are  always  plucking,"  he  observed  with  the 
cheerful  ease  of  a  person  watching  another  engaged 
in  toil,  "  where  something  ought  to  be  plucked  and 
creating  where  something  ought  to  be  created." 

She  smiled  at  this  compliment — so  manifestly  un- 
tainted with  envy. 

"  Doesn't  it  serve  as  an  example  to  you  ? "  she 
replied,  with  an  effort  to  be  severe. 

"  Why  no.  You  see  I  picked  flowers  the  last  time 
I  was  here.  I  must  have  change." 

"Change,"  she  repeated,  mockingly.  "Always 
change.  You  have  the  soul  of  a  chameleon." 

"  A  chameleon's  soul  is  steadfast,"  he  corrected. 
"  It  is  only  his  skin  that  changes." 

He  picked  a  stone  from  the  walk  and  tossed  it 
into  the  pool,  where  it  disappeared  with  a  tiny  splash 
and  left  a  hundred  concentric  circles  on  the  surface. 

"  Outwardly  I  seem  to  be  changing,"  he  asserted. 
"  But  within  I  think  I  am  going  straight.  I  have  to 

try  various  things  to  find  out  what  I  like." 

24 


THE  GARDEN— SUMMER 

"  Is  it  true  that  you  have  decided  to  give  up  your 
engineering?"  she  asked. 

He  made  an  oratorical  gesture  with  his  flower. 

"  Yes.     I  find  I  am  no  engineer." 

"  But  I  thought  you  had  made  such  a  good  record." 

"  I  made  a  good  enough  record,"  he  conceded. 
"  But  I  don't  like  the  work." 

"  Couldn't  you  have  guessed  that  before  ?  You've 
wasted  a  whole  year  of  your  life." 

He  rose  and  strode  up  and  down  the  gravel  walk. 

"  Indeed  I've  not.  I've  added  just  so  much  to  my 
fund  of  general  knowledge.  And  I  know  now  I  do 
not  want  to  be  an  engineer — which  is  a  valuable 
piece  of  information." 

"  I  can't  break  down  your  optimism,"  she  ex- 
claimed, at  length.  "  But  what  are  you  going  to 
do?" 

David  handed  her  his  offering  of  one  nasturtium 
for  her  bunch. 

"  The  widow's  mite,"  he  explained.  "  Why,"  he 
continued,  "  I'm  going  to  Paris  to  study  painting." 

"  David  !  "  she  cried. 

"  Why  not  ?     I've  always  wanted  to." 

"  But  it's  so  different  from  civil  engineering." 

"  Yes.     I  think  that  is  in  its  favor." 

25 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Do  you  know,  David,"  she  said,  rising  and  dust- 
ing off  her  skirt,  "  you  proceed  through  life  by  tak- 
•ing  one  step  in  one  direction  and  the  next  step  in 
the  opposite  direction." 

"  I  know,"  he  agreed,  but  did  not  attempt  to  dis- 
cuss the  point. 

She  sat  down  on  a  bench  under  the  trees,  and  her 
usually  busy  hands  lay  idle  in  her  lap. 

"  How  does  it  happen,"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  show 
of  astonishment,  "  that  you  are  not  sewing  or  mixing 
mayonnaise  or  something?  " 

"Oh,  sometimes,"  she  replied,  "  I'm  quite  human." 

He  sat  upon  the  stone  steps. 

"When  are  you  going?  "  she  asked,  presently. 

"  I  leave  here  day  after  to-morrow." 

She  gazed  thoughtfully  for  a  while  at  her  hands  in 
her  lap. 

"  Of  course  we  shall  miss  you,"  she  said. 

" '  We  '  used  in  the  editorial  sense  ?  "  he  inquired. 

"The  community  at  large,"  she  replied,  waving 
her  hand. 

"  Please  thank  them  for  me." 

They  were  silent.  He  shot  a  twig  at  a  robin 
hopping  close  by  the  hedge. 

"  Tell  me  this,"  she  asked,  "  do  you  really  think 

26 


"  OF   COURSE   WE    SHALL    MISS   YOU 


THE  GARDEN— SUMMER 

you  have  the — the  divine  fire  in  you,  or  do  you 
simply  feel  you  need  a  change  of  scene  ?  " 

He  considered  a  moment. 

"  Of  course  I  always  want  a  change  of  scene. 
But  aside  from  that  I'm  enthusiastic  about  this 
thing.  I've  drawn  pictures  ever  since  I  was  old 
enough  to  sit  up  alone.  If  I  hadn't  happened  to 
go  out  with  that  engineering  corps  last  summer,  I 
never  would  have  thought  of  being  anything  else 
but  a  painter." 

Margaret  smiled  at  him. 

"  What  does  your  superior  smile  mean  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  When  you '  are  crossing  over,"  she  replied, 
"don't  permit  yourself  to  be  shown  the  workings 
of  the  ship.  You'll  be  a  naval  architect  if  you  do." 

After  they  had  talked  for  a  long  while  and  the 
shadows  of  the  trees  began  to  lengthen  on  the  grass, 
he  rose  to  go.  And  there  was  in  his  manner  a  lin- 
gering reluctance,  as  though  he  wished  to  make  the 
most  of  the  moment.  Perhaps  the  same  thought 
was  uppermost  in  the  mind  of  each — that  this  was 
the  last  day  of  their  child  youth.  He  was  going 
forth  now  into  the  world  as  a  man,  to  hunt  for  his 

burden  and  take  it  up.     And  when  he  returned,  he 

27 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

knew  that  it  was  not  improbable  she  too  might  have 
gone  forth  on  a  like  mission. 

When  he  had  shaken  hands  with  her,  a  sense  of 
comradeship  prompted  her  to  walk  down  the  brick 
walk  with  him.  She  picked  a  flower  from  the  bed 
by  the  gate  and,  bidding  him  stand  still,  reached  up 
and  drew  it  through  his  buttonhole.  And  she 
laughed,  because  she  could  not  have  denied  there 
was  a  certain  heaviness  in  her  heart. 

"That  was  a  most  flirtatious  thing  to  do,"  she 
exclaimed,  smiling,  "  but — may  it  bring  you  good 
luck." 

"  I  like  you  to  be  flirtatious,"  he  said. 

She  made  a  mouth  at  him. 

"  In  that  case  I  must  try  not  to  be." 

Still  some  time  later  he  was  holding  her  hand  for 
a  brief  moment  again  across  the  swinging  gate. 

"  Good-bye,"  she  said.     "  Come  back  soon." 

Then  she  returned  to  the  chair  under  the  trees, 
and  picked  up  her  sewing.  The  robins  hopped 
about  on  the  grass  beside  her.  She  stared  absently 
at  them.  In  her  lap  rested  idly  the  usually  busy 
hands  and  the  sewing  with  its  needle  thrust  into  it 
lay  untouched  on  her  knee. 


28 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  GARDEN — AUTUMN 

red  and  russet  and  golden  leaves  spread 
A  out  all  over  the  lawn  and  the  paths  and  the 
flower  beds.  The  gaunt  limbs  of  the  trees  were 
showing  brown  and  bare  against  the  sky,  and  from 
the  street  could  now  be  seen  the  outlines  of  the 
house.  The  leaves  rustled  underfoot.  First  frost 
had  bitten  the  flowers.  A  general  air  of  sombre 
quiet  lay  on  the  garden  that  even  the  Indian  summer 
sun  did  not  seem  to  dispel. 

Mr.  Lacey's  chair  was  not  in  its  accustomed  place 
on  the  lawn.  Nor  was  it  indeed  upon  the  porch 
where  it  had  usually  been  in  years  past  after  the 
ground  had  grown  too  damp  for  him.  The  benches 
had  been  taken  in  and  the  shutters  were  closed. 

Upon  the  stone  steps,  her  chin  upon  her  hand,  sat 
Margaret,  in  black ;  and  the  clear  whiteness  of  her 
skin  and  the  rose  of  her  cheeks  stood  out  well  against 
it.  She  was  twenty  now,  and  a  trifle  more  rounded 

and   matured.     She  sat  with   her  back  against  a 

29 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

column,  glancing  every  now  and  then  at  the  street 
as  if  she  were  expecting  some  one. 

In  a  few  moments  an  automobile  appeared  and 
came  to  a  stop  at  the  gate.  Two  men  were  in  it. 
One  of  them  stepped  out  and  spoke  a  few  words  to 
the  other,  who  nodded,  and,  starting  the  machine, 
drove  away  again.  It  was  a  big  man  who  opened 
the  gate  and  came  up  the  path.  He  carried  with 
him  his  lawyer's  green  bag,  which,  like  everything 
that  came  in  contrast  with  him,  seemed  lilliputian  in 
its  smallness.  This  was  David  Bruce's  father. 

"  My  dear  Margaret,"  he  said,  "  I  have  no  very 
good  news  for  you.  Lacey's  will  leaves  everything 
to  you,  but  that  everything  turns  out  to  be  very 
little." 

"I  expected  that,"  she  replied. 

Mr.  Bruce  nodded. 

"  As  you  doubtless  know,"  he  continued,  "  he  had 
been  drawing  on  his  principal  for  a  long  while,  and 
at  his  death  he  had  nearly  exhausted  it.  If  he  had 
lived  another  year  I  do  not  know  what  there  would 
have  been  for  him  to  live  on.  As  it  is,  you  have 
just  about  an  even  thousand  dollars,  which  I  am 
thankful  to  say  we  shall  be  able  to  place  almost  im- 
mediately at  your  disposal." 

30 


THE  GARDEN— AUTUMN 

"  You  are  very  kind,"  she  said. 

"  I  think,"  she  went  on  presently,  "  I  have  just 
about  decided  upon  my  plan  of  action.  Last  year 
I  suggested  to  Mr.  Lacey  that  I  study  stenography 
in  order  to  be  prepared  for  such  a  turn  of  events  as 
this.  He  would  not  hear  of  it,  but  I  still  think  that 
that  is  the  best  thing  for  me  to  do,  as  I  have  now  my 
living  to  earn." 

Mr.  Bruce  stroked  his  chin  thoughtfully. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  think  that  is  the  wisest  course. 
I  have  never  been  quite  able  to  accustom  myself  to 
a  young  girl's  going  promiscuously  into  an  office  this 
way,"  he  added,  "  but  in  this  case  it  seems  to  be 
necessary." 

"  I  shall  be  able  to  take  care  of  myself,  I  think," 
she  replied. 

"  I  have  no  doubt  you  will ;  I  have  no  doubt  you 
will.  The  old  house  and  grounds  brought  very 
little  more  than  the  mortgages,"  he  said,  looking 
about  him.  "  It  was  a  pity  to  sell  them,  but  I  know 
they  could  not  remain  as  they  are  much  longer. 
They  are  going  to  cut  a  street  right  through  your 
lily  pond  some  day." 

Half  an  hour  later  the  automobile  drew  up  to  the 
curb  once  again.  Mr.  Bruce  rose.  She  walked 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

down  to  the  gate  with  him.  The  man  in  the  ma- 
chine looked  at  her  attentively. 

"  Come  here,  Potter,"  called  Bruce.  "  I  want  to 
present  you  to  Miss  York." 

The  man  got  down  quickly  and  came  in  the  gate. 
He  was  younger  than  Mr.  Bruce,  not  yet  turned 
thirty  in  fact,  with  alert  eyes  that  never  left  the  face 
of  the  person  he  was  talking  to.  She  was  impressed 
with  the  extra  care  with  which  he  was  dressed. 

"Potter,"  said  the  older  man,  "Miss  York  is 
about  to  study  stenography.  What  do  you  con- 
sider the  best  way  for  her  to  go  about  it  ?  " 

Potter  recommended  a  certain  school.  He  di- 
rected a  keen  glance  at  her — a  glance  accustomed 
to  quick  appraisal. 

"Take  three  months  there.  No  more.  And 
when  you  have  finished,"  he  said,  "our  firm  will 
have  a  position  ready  for  you,  should  you  care  to 
take  it." 

She  flushed  with  pleasure  and  thanked  him. 

"That's  a  feather  in  your  cap,  Margaret,"  cried 
Mr.  Bruce.  "  Potter  is  one  of  the  foremost  young 
business  men  in  the  city." 

Potter  clapped  him  lightly  on  the  back  and 
laughed.  The  two  men  got  into  the  car,  and  as  the 

32 


THE  GARDEN— AUTUMN 

machine  started  the  young  and  foremost  Mr.  Potter 
turned  and  looked  her  squarely  in  the  eyes  just  for 
a  fraction  of  a  second.  There  was  no  mistaking 
something  in  his  eyes.  The  blood  stirred  within 
her.  As  Mr.  Bruce  had  said,  here  was  a  feather  in 
her  cap. 


33 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  NEW  GARDEN 

THE  offices  and  factory  of  the  Waring  Company 
were  built  with  an  elaborate  idea  of  forestalling 
Providence.  The  scheme  of  the  whole  plant  was  to 
make  it  so  impervious  to  fire,  water,  lightning, 
sudden  death,  inefficiency,  human  error,  lost  mo- 
tion, waste  products,  bad  filing  systems,  and  all  the 
curses  called  down  upon  business  undertakings  by 
the  aforesaid  Providence  that  it  should  be  a  little 
universe  all  of  its  own — revolving,  as  it  were,  in  its 
own  orbit,  making  its  own  rules,  and  generally 
shaping  that  part  of  the  imperfect  world  which 
came  under  its  control  in  such  a  way  that  it  would 
result  in  dollars  for  the  Waring  Company.  Han- 
dling as  they  did  large  quantities  of  paints,  volatile 
oils,  and  other  inflammable  liquids,  the  building 
was  elaborately  fire-proofed — equipped  with  steel 
doors  that  closed  automatically  in  case  of  fire  and 
automatic  sprinklers  that  turned  streams  of  water 
into  the  rooms  where  the  temperature  rose  above 

34 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

a  certain  point.  The  hand  of  death  was  kept  out- 
side the  property  line  of  the  Waring  Company.  All 
the  dangerous  machinery  and  the  dangerous  proc- 
esses were  safeguarded  to  protect  man  against  his 
own  carelessness.  For  the  preparation  of  some  of 
their  more  dangerous  and  volatile  products  they 
had  a  row  of  furnaces  in  the  open  air,  each  with  its 
own  chimney,  where  the  men  worked  out-of-doors 
the  year  around.  The  danger  from  explosions  was 
thus  reduced  to  a  minimum.  They  could  not  set 
back  the  sun  as  Joshua  did,  but  they  made  every 
minute  deliver  to  them  sixty  seconds'  worth  of  value. 
The  human  heart  rests  between  beats,  but  between 
the  moment  the  whistle  at  Waring's  blew  to  start 
and  blew  again  to  shut  down  there  was  no  pause. 
The  products  moved  steadily  down  from  the  top 
floor  to  the  shipping  room.  The  men  worked  with 
materials  within  easy  reach,  so  that  a  man  employed 
to  use  his  hands  was  not  compelled  to  use  his  legs. 
It  was  a  big  machine,  of  which  the  various  cogs 
were  human  beings. 

And  one  of  those  cogs  was  Margaret  York.  It 
would  be  futile  to  say  that  she  did  not  resent  being 
a  cog,  a  mere  unit  whose  usefulness  to  the  whole 
ceased  as  soon  as  she  ceased  to  follow  certain 

35 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

hard  and  set  rules.  Individuality  was  discouraged, 
suppressed,  flattened  out  by  a  steam-roller  which 
smoothed  everything  for  the  easy  revolving  of  big- 
ger wheels.  When  she  was  first  taken  into  a  large 
brick-walled  room  with  a  concrete  floor  and  sat  at 
a  metal  desk  to  which  a  messenger  three  times  a 
day  brought  letters  from  N  to  R  to  be  entered  on  a 
card  index,  and  from  morning  to  night  did  nothing 
but  enter  those  letters  on  the  card  index,  she  knew 
that  if  they  had  attached  a  ball  and  chain  to  her 
ankle  as  well,  she  could  not  have  been  more  dis- 
couraged and  depressed. 

But  her  training  had  not  been  of  the  sort  that  al- 
lowed much  room  for  rebellious  discontent.  She  re- 
corded letters  on  her  card  index  until  she  would  wake 
up  in  the  middle  of  the  night  repeating,  "  August 
i8th,  William  Sharpe.  Requesting  sample  Number 
196,"  or  some  such  similar  echo  of  the  day's  work. 
For  six  months  she  did  that.  It  was  a  dreary, 
spiritless  task.  The  other  girls  in  the  room  plodded 
through  their  work  thinking  of  other  things,  flying 
to  whisper  confidences  to  each  other  every  stray 
minute  that  supervision  was  relaxed  over  them,  en- 
deavoring to  make  the  minutes  fly  as  fast  as  pos- 
sible by  taking  their  minds  off  their  work  whenever 

36 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

the  chance  offered.  Margaret  was  not  interested  in 
them.  She  tried  to  be  interested  in  the  tiny  facet  of 
the  big  business  that  was  offered  to  her  view.  She 
found  that  by  working  fast  she  could  finish  one  col- 
lection of  letters  before  the  messenger  brought  her 
another.  In  the  space  of  leisure  she  thus  created 
for  herself,  she  read  the  letters.  It  was  not  a 
strongly  diverting  occupation,  for  the  communica- 
tions, for  the  most  part,  were  unintelligible  to  her. 
But  when  she  began  to  get  second  and  third  letters 
on  the  same  subject,  sometimes  a  light  would  dawn 
— just  a  ray  out  of  primeval  darkness — but  enough 
to  stir  her  curiosity.  After  a  certain  time  she  found 
she  had  thoroughly  well  classified  in  her  mind  all 
the  things  about  the  factory  that  she  did  not  know, 
which  is  the  most  unsatisfactory  classification  that 
can  possibly  exist  in  the  human  brain. 

However,  one  day  at  the  noon  hour,  the  elevator 
boy,  who  ran  his  car  up  and  down  in  a  fire-proof 
chimney,  offered  to  take  her  up  to  the  roof  so  that 
she  might  eat  her  lunch  there  in  the  open  air.  After 
that  she  spent  all  her  lunch  periods  on  the  roof. 
Most  of  the  employees  were  anxious  to  get  out  on  the 
street  and  see  the  outside  world  in  their  thirty  min- 
utes of  leisure,  but  there  were  half  a  dozen  others 

37 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

who,  like  herself,  preferred  the  quiet  of  that  place. 
These  were  all  young  boys — messengers,  apprentices, 
embryo  chemists.  At  first  they  were  rather  shy  of 
her,  but  after  a  time  the  ice  was  broken  and  they 
would  gather  around  her  and  gossip.  She  dis- 
covered that  they  made  a  point  of  knowing  every- 
thing about  the  establishment — individual  salaries, 
proposed  changes,  imminent  discharges,  and  promo- 
tions, mistakes  by  superiors  and  all  the  current 
praise  and  slander.  Interlarded  with  this,  however, 
was  a  very  fair  understanding  of  what  the  firm 
manufactured  and  why  and  whereabouts  in  the 
building,  how  long  it  took,  who  were  the  experts, 
who  were  the  drudges  and  a  thousand  and  one  such 
facts. 

She  found  out  that  the  firm  manufactured  now 
nothing  but  stains  and  varnishes  for  interior  wood- 
work, making  a  specialty  of  finishes  for  chestnut 
and  oak,  which  were  susceptible  to  the  action  of 
ammonia.  She  also  learned  that  on  the  top  floor 
was  a  laboratory  where  a  number  of  expensive 
chemists  played  with  oils  and  pigments  all  day  long, 
and  every  now  and  then  furnished  the  firm  with  a 
new  product.  She  learned  that  such  and  such  a 
man  getting  four  thousand  dollars  a  year  had  dis- 

38 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

covered  stain  Number  1088,  which  had  sold  so  well 
that  the  force  had  to  be  increased  by  nearly  a  third  to 
manufacture  it  fast  enough  to  supply  the  demand. 
She  learned  that  before  the  advent  of  Mr.  Potter  as 
general  manager,  the  Waring  Company  had  manu- 
factured almost  every  kind  of  paint  and  varnish  and 
sold  very  little  of  it.  The  gossip  that  filtered  down 
to  those  youths  on  the  lowest  rung  was  that  the  one 
word  Mr.  Potter  had  brought  into  the  business  was 
"  Specialize."  Where  they  had  had  before  a  hun- 
dred men  making  outside  paint,  inside  paint,  metallic 
paint,  carriage  paint,  house  varnish,  spar  varnish, 
water-proofing  compounds,  and  a  hundred  other 
products,  they  had  now  nearly  a  thousand  working 
on  nothing  but  stains,  and  what  they  termed  flat 
varnishes — which  she  learned  was  the  name  applied 
to  varnishes  without  a  gloss. 

All  this  was  technical  and  would  have  been  deadly 
dull  to  her  had  she  not  been  steeped  for  the  past  six 
months  in  the  atmosphere  of  these  terms,  and  had  she 
not  realized  that  with  her  entrance  into  that  build- 
ing all  those  terms  and  conditions  became  an  in- 
separable part  of  her  life. 

The  next  step  was  that  she  must  see  the  building. 
And  at  lunch  hour  every  day  with  one  or  more  of  the 

39 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

boys  as  guide  she  visited  little  by  little  the  whole 
working  space  of  the  plant.  They  were  interested 
in  her  interest,  and  although  they  were  bored  im- 
measurably at  times  by  the  thoroughness  with  which 
she  learned  .things,  nevertheless  her  point  of  view  on 
everything  she  saw  was  so  naive  that  they  never  tired 
of  the  excursions.  Men  in  the  different  departments, 
flattered  by  her  interest,  would  explain  things  to  her. 
Her  circle  of  acquaintances  grew.  But  she  was 
naturally  looked  upon  as  an  oddity  by  the  other 
stenographers  and  women  clerks,  who  could  not 
understand  her  interest  in  the  unpleasant  smells  up- 
stairs. 

One  day  as  she  was  talking  to  one  of  the  men  in 
the  room  where  the  stain  was  stored  in  concrete  tanks 
for  the  purpose  of  aging  it,  the  man  was  suddenly 
frozen  into  silence.  Across  the  room  strode  Mr.  Pot- 
ter, walking  quickly,  looking  straight  before  him  yet 
seeming  to  see  everything.  He  asked  a  question  of 
the  man  at  a  desk  at  the  end  of  the  room  and  then 
disappeared  again.  The  next  day  in  another  room 
a  similar  thing  happened,  and,  much  to  her  surprise, 
on  the  third  day,  in  a  third  room,  he  appeared  again. 
On  neither  of  these  occasions  had  he  spoken  a  word 
to  her. 

4o 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

"  I  think  the  boss  disapproves  of  us  nosing  around," 
said  one  of  her  companions,  in  the  vernacular.  "  I 
guess  we  had  better  cut  it  out." 

"  There  is  no  reason  why  he  shouldn't  say  so," 
the  girl  asserted. 

In  a  moment  Mr.  Potter  approached  them,  and, 
stopping  as  he  was  about  to  pass,  said : 

"  Miss  York,  my  stenographer  has  gone  to  lunch. 
Will  you  take  dictation,  please  ?  " 

He  disappeared  again.  When  she  had  recovered 
from  her  surprise,  she  inquired  her  way  to  his  office 
and  presented  herself.  She  was  conscious  that  her 
thrill  of  excitement  was  not  altogether  unmixed. 
Beside  the  very  proper  and  businesslike  enthusiasm 
she  felt  at  being  summoned  to  the  office  of  her  most 
important  superior,  she  owned  up  to  a  certain  femi- 
nine interest  in  the  proceeding.  A  quite  primitive 
emotion  held  her,  for  in  spite  of  their  relation  as 
governor  and  governed,  the  fact  remained  that  he 
was  a  man  and  she  was  a  woman,  and  she  was 
somewhat  amused  to  find  that  her  interest  in  him 
was  more  as  a  man  than  as  a  power.  She  found 
herself  thinking  that  if  he  knew  that  thought  he 
would  have  been  highly  indignant  at  the  lese-majesty 
in  it 

41 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

He  looked  at  her  full  in  the  eyes,  smiled  almost 
perceptibly,  motioned  her  to  a  chair  and  began  to 
dictate.  He  gave  her  three  letters  in  all,  which  he 
announced  briefly  were  to  be  rushed.  She  was 
dimly  aware  that  there  was  a  certain  ritual  concern- 
ing the  number  of  carbon  copies,  the  width  of  mar- 
gin, the  file  number  to  be  placed  at  the  top  of  the 
sheet  and  the  proper  stationery  to  be  used.  But  she 
had  wit  enough  not  to  ask  him  concerning  these 
things.  Instead  she  closed  her  book  and  left  the 
room  with  as  much  ease  of  manner  as  she  could 
muster,  as  though  she  were  merely  carrying  out  one 
of  the  routine  duties  of  her  life.  But  the  instant  she 
had  closed  the  door  behind  her,  she  picked  out  one 
of  the  girl  stenographers  with  whom  she  had  ex- 
changed a  few  words  on  various  occasions,  and 
interrupting  her  in  the  midst  of  the  sentence  she 
was  typing,  told  her  she  would  give  her  the  privilege 
of  answering  four  questions — no  more — on  the  sub- 
ject of  those  letters.  And  when  the  girl,  much 
amused,  had  complied,  she  tore  back  to  her  own 
desk  and  her  fingers  flew  over  the  keys.  In  less 
than  fifteen  minutes  the  letters  were  in  the  hands  of 
a  messenger  on  the  way  to  Mr.  Potter's  office.  But 

all  her  elation  was  turned  to  gloom  when  presently 

42 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

one  of  the  letters  came  back  with  a  line  through  the 
word  "  subservient,"  into  which  she  had  managed  to 
insert  the  letter  "c."  That  evening  as  she  went 
home  she  bought  a  pocket  dictionary. 

The  routine  of  the  office  remained  unchanged  for 
her  for  a  week  or  more  after  that,  and  then  one  day 
Mr.  Potter  sent  for  her. 

"  To-morrow,"  he  said,  "  another  girl  will  take 
your  place  in  the  file  room.  I  shall  need  you  here.  I 
have  a  certain  class  of  correspondence  requiring  dis- 
cretion— can  you  be  discreet  ?  "  he  asked,  suddenly. 

She  had  been  very  demure  and  solemn  up  to  this 
point. 

"  It's  my  middle  name,"  she  said,  positively,  drop- 
ping into  the  argot  she  heard  about  her  all  day  long. 

Potter  leaned  back  in  his  chair  and  laughed.  She 
was  almost  frightened  at  the  sudden  casting  aside  of 
his  official  manner. 

"  I  think,"  said  he,  "  we  shall  get  along  together. 
You  will  answer  to  this  foot  buzzer.  If  I  ring  three 
times  it  means,  '  Friends,  Romans,  Countrymen,  I 
need  your  ears.'  You  will  then  enter,  seat  yourself 
at  the  typewriter  in  the  corner  and  write,  but  listen 
to  what  is  being  said.  You  are  to  be  the  Human 
Dictaphone." 

43 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

He  dismissed  her  with  a  nod.  She  was  never, 
however,  called  in  to  be  the  Human  Dictaphone,  ex- 
cept on  one  occasion  when  he  was  trying  to  find  out 
why  they  had  to  pay  so  much  more  for  turpentine 
than  formerly.  Most  of  her  work  was  in  taking  dic- 
tation from  him  and  keeping  a  file  of  orders  promised 
in  quick  time. 

There  was  such  a  demand  for  the  Waring  Com- 
pany's products  that  the  manufacture  of  them  never 
quite  kept  pace  with  the  orders,  which  had  to  be 
filled  in  rotation.  But  in  some  instances  large  orders 
were  taken  with  the  stipulation  that  they  were  to  be 
delivered  at  a  certain  time.  Mr.  Potter  took  charge 
of  all  these.  He  dictated  a  letter  saying  that  such 
and  such  things  would  be  shipped  on  such  and  such 
a  date.  Margaret  wrote  the  letter,  making  a  carbon 
for  the  foreman  of  the  factory,  one  for  the  shipping 
clerk,  one  for  the  bookkeeper  and  one  for  the  gen- 
eral files.  After  she  had  been  working  on  this  kind 
of  thing  for  some  months  she  decided  it  would  be 
well  to  have  a  fifth  carbon  to  keep  herself — for  check. 
Mr.  Potter  had  a  remarkable  facility  for  carrying  a 
vast  amount  of  detail  in  his  head,  and  he  would 
usually  remember  the  date  on  which  the  shipment 
had  been  promised,  and  call  up  to  find  out  if  it  had 

44 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

been  sent.  But  sometimes,  when  there  were  a  num- 
ber of  orders,  he  would  forget.  So  on  the  proper 
date  she  would  simply  lay  the  order  on  his  desk. 
But  if  this  pleased  him  he  said  nothing  whatever 
about  it. 

Now  and  then  he  would  have  an  odd  moment  of 
relaxation,  when  he  would  set  down  his  pack  from 
his  shoulders  for  an  instant.  On  such  occasions  he 
took  her  breath  away.  In  one  of  these  moments  just 
after  he  had  put  through  a  very  big  deal,  he  touched 
his  buzzer  three  times.  She  entered  in  great  haste 
and  found  him  alone  in  the  room. 

"  What  am  I  to  listen  to  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  Myself,"  he  replied,  with  one  of  the  grammatical 
aberrations  that  marked  him  for  a  self-made  man. 

She  looked  at  him  through  eyes  half-closed  and 
began  to  laugh.  She  wore  a  narrow  gold  bracelet 
on  her  left  forearm.  To  her  surprise  he  reached  for- 
ward and  caught  it  in  his  thumb  and  forefinger. 

"  Sit  down  here." 

She  slipped  her  hand  out  of  the  bracelet. 

"  I  think  you  may  have  it,"  she  said,  smiling. 

He  still  held  the  gold  trinket  in  his  hand,  looking 
a  little  sheepish.  His  jaws  set.  He  laid  it  on  the 
glass  top  of  his  mahogany  desk. 

45 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  believe  that  will  be  all,"  he  said,  in  his  best 
office  manner. 

That  evening  some  unexpected  work  came  along 
which  kept  them  both  after  office  hours.  When  she 
had  finished  he  called  her  into  his  office.  He  picked 
up  the  bracelet  from  the  desk  where  it  had  been  ly- 
ing all  afternoon. 

"  In  receiving  this  bracelet  again,"  he  said,  "  I 
want  you  to  feel  that  there  goes  with  it  my  most 
earnest  apology.  An  extraordinary  enthusiasm 
seems  to  have  seized  me  for  the  instant,  which  I  as- 
sure you  was  not  coupled  with  any  disrespect  for 
yourself." 

She  took  the  bracelet  and  slipped  it  on  her  arm. 

"  I  realize  that,"  she  replied.  "  I  have  not  thought 
much  about  it." 

He  looked  at  his  watch  and  snapped  it  shut  again. 

"  It  is  very  late  now,"  he  said,  "  too  late  for  your 
dinner.  Could  I  prevail  on  you  to  dine  with  me?" 

She  felt  that  it  would  not  be  wise. 

"  I  would  prefer  not.  Not  just  yet.  You  see,  we 
do  not  know  each  other  very  well." 

"I  feel  as  if  I  knew  you  quite  well,"  he  said. 
"Miss  York,"  he  broke  off,  shortly,  "would  you 

mind  if  I  gave  you  a  fatherly  heart-to-heart  talk  ?  " 

46 


THE  NEW  GARDEN 

"  I  should  like  it,"  she  exclaimed,  looking  at  him 
with  interest. 

"Then  tell  me  this.  Are  you  in  this  business 
world  as  a  life-work,  or  is  it  just  a  life  preserver  to 
float  you  until  you  can  get  married  ?  " 

"  Not  by  any  means  the  latter,"  she  replied, 
laughing. 

"  Then  your  heart  is  in  the  work." 

"  Oh,  beyond  a  doubt." 

"  In  that  case,"  he  said,  "  I  shall  give  you  a  very 
strange  piece  of  advice  coming  from  an  employer  to 
an  employee.  And  it  is — don't  stay  with  the  War- 
ing Company.  You  are  an  efficient  person,  and 
your  grasp  of  the  situation  here  has  been  marvelous. 
You  will  go  far  if  you  start  right.  But  the  right 
start  is  not  here." 

"  Please  explain,"  she  said,  flushing  with  pleasure. 

"  This  factory  is  a  finished  product.  There  is  no 
room  here  for  any  one  to  carve  his  name.  The  sys- 
tem is  worked  out — it  is  cut-and-dried — and  all  they 
need  is  a  few  animate  objects  to  carry  out  the  de- 
tails. If  you  were  a  chemist  and  could  discover  new 
products,  you  might  make  a  little  headway.  But 
the  strategic  points  are  held  by  stubborn  people — 
like  myself — and  they  have  to  be  killed  off  before 

47 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

there  is  a  chance  for  you  or  any  one  else.  Ten 
years  ago  there  was  need  in  the  company  for  new 
blood." 

She  looked  at  him  curiously,  knowing  that  that 
was  the  opportunity  he  had  grasped. 

"  What  chance  is  there  for  a  woman  in  business  ?  " 
she  asked,  presently. 

"  Just  as  much  as  for  a  man,"  he  cried,  emphat- 
ically. "  There  is  no  chance  for  those  women  in 
there  who  never  under  any  circumstances  let  their 
minds  be  on  their  work.  But  what  you  need  is  op- 
portunity. You  have  the  ability." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

"  Now  remember  what  I  have  told  you,"  he  con- 
cluded, "  and  when  you  have  an  opportunity  to  go 
to  a  place  that  needs  you,  go.  That's  what  I  did." 

"I  am  sure  I  appreciate  this,"  she  said,  rising, 
"  and  I  shall  try  to  be  awake  when  the  opportunity 
comes." 


48 


CHAPTER  V 

STANDSTILL  STREET 

MARGARET  had  been  with  the  Waring  Com- 
pany a  little  more  than  a  year  when  one 
morning  Mr.  Potter  called  her  into  his  office.  There 
was  something  very  military  about  his  office.  The 
desk  was  a  big  mahogany  one  protected  by  a  glass 
top,  and  upon  it  rested  his  writing  materials,  his 
telephones  and  two  baskets  for  mail — nothing  else. 
The  decks  were  always  cleared  for  action.  He  him- 
self was  attired  in  a  dark  suit  pressed  until  it  set 
upon  him  with  absolute  perfection.  A  band  of  white 
piping  ran  around  the  lapel  of  his  vest — it  was  a 
noticeable  thing  that  he  considered  it  a  part  of  his 
scheme  of  dress  to  wear  a  vest  at  all  seasons  of  the 
year.  His  high  button  shoes  were  polished  until 
they  shone,  and — this  was  a  matter  of  very  ques- 
tionable taste,  but  it  seemed  somehow  to  carry  out 
the  perfect  businesslike  spruceness  of  him — his 
finger  nails  were  manicured  until  they  shone  as 
well.  Margaret  had  long  ago  decided  that  there 

49 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

was  no  personal  vanity  in  this  thoroughgoing 
orderliness.  It  was  part  of  the  military  discipline 
of  his  business  life. 

He  motioned  her  to  a  seat  and  swung  around  in 
his  swivel  chair  until  he  faced  her. 

"  Miss  York,"  he  said,  "  I  want  you  to  undertake 
a  little  mission  for  me  this  morning." 

There  was  such  an  air  of  reserve  force  and  of 
many  interests  about  him,  that  his  stopping  for  a 
moment  in  the  course  of  his  progress  to  pay  per- 
sonal attention  to  one  always  seemed  somehow  in 
the  nature  of  a  compliment.  At  any  rate  it  usually 
set  up  in  her  a  little  tremor  of  excitement — wholly 
unwarranted,  of  course,  but  nevertheless  pleasant. 

"  A  customer  of  ours,"  Potter  continued,  "  has 
just  telephoned  to  me  to  say  that  he  did  not  receive 
a  certain  shipment  which  our  records  show  was  de- 
livered last  week.  Now  there  is  no  doubt  about 
this.  Our  wagon  made  delivery  and  we  have  his 
receipt.  But  the  point  is,  he  says  he  has  not  the 
goods.  And  as  he  remarks,  with  some  justice,  you 
can't  mislay  a  hundred  gallons  of  paint." 

A  messenger  brought  in  a  telegram  which  he  read 
and  put  his  initials  upon. 

"  This  sort  of  thing,"  he  continued,  "  is  coming  up 

50 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

all  the  time.  Of  course,  we  could  simply  say  we 
have  made  delivery  and  wash  our  hands  of  the 
matter.  But  I  believe  in  leaving  people  satisfied. 
The  peace  of  mind  of  our  customers  is  worth  half  a 
million  dollars  a  year  to  us.  As  Julius  Caesar  says, 
let's  have  fellows  around  us  that  sleep  at  nights." 

The  telephone  buzzer  on  his  desk  sounded.  With 
the  perfect  poise  that  only  a  mind  which  deals  with 
one  subject  at  a  time  can  achieve,  he  went  on  talk- 
ing as  if  he  had  heard  no  sound. 

"  I  want  you  to  go  down  to  this  man's  place  and 
find  that  shipment.  It  is  a  matter  that  requires  a 
little  tact,  so — you  will  know  what  to  do.  The  man 
runs  a  notoriously  careless  business,  and  you  are 
liable  to  find  the  stuff  anywhere.  The  name  of  the 
party  is  Cyrus  Bundy.  And,"  he  concluded,  "don't 
return  without  finding  the  goods." 

"  I  promise,"  she  said. 

She  got  the  address  from  the  outer  office,  and 
half  an  hour  later  found  herself  on  a  dingy  street 
near  the  wharves,  crowded  with  drays  and  motor 
trucks.  This  was  Severn  Street.  She  was  search- 
ing for  Number  56  as  she  walked  along.  The  whole 
vicinity  teemed  with  a  seedy,  out-at-the-elbows 
prosperity,  as  though  the  people  behind  all  those 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

dismal  facades  had  fortified  themselves  against  busi- 
ness and  it  had  broken  in  in  spite  of  them.  The  en- 
trances to  their  shops  were  so  piled  about  with  mer- 
chandise that  a  hopeful  customer  had  to  burrow  his 
way  in  like  a  mole,  and  within  all  was  so  dark  that 
he  groped  blindly  about  in  the  semi-twilight,  not 
knowing  at  what  instant  his  career  might  be  cut 
short  by  his  stumbling  over  an  iron  anchor  or  strik- 
ing his  head  against  a  bundle  of  pulleys.  It  was 
contrary  to  all  the  rules  of  Severn  Street  to  paint, 
clean,  scrub,  garnish,  repair,  or  resort  to  any  such 
vanities  of  the  flesh.  It  was  unprofessional  to  call 
attention  to  one's  position  in  the  hazy  fog  of  build- 
ings by  legible  signs  or  by  new  paint.  It  was  bad 
taste  to  display  zeal,  enterprise  or  a  new  idea, — a 
new  idea  especially.  Severn  Street's  zenith  of 
progress  had  been  reached  in  eighteen  eighty-one 
and  had  crystallized  there.  Sometimes  people  called 
it  Standstill  Street. 

Amid  the  dust  and  cobwebs  that  obscured  the 
transom  of  one  of  these  typically  musty  edifices  ap- 
peared like  a  steamboat  in  a  fog  the  dim  outlines 
of  Number  56.  The  building  lived  up  to  all  the 
traditions  of  the  street — in  fact,  it  went  beyond 
them.  The  dingy  smoke  gray  of  its  flat  front 

52 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

represented  the  white  paint  of  years  past.  The 
rusted  iron  grilles,  the  unwashed  windows,  the 
cracked  lintels,  the  stone  steps  out  of  line  and  worn 
concave,  bore  testimony  to  the  principle  of  letting 
the  cash  seek  the  man.  Here  also  was  the  con- 
servative pride  in  having  a  reputation  of  such  long 
standing  that  no  legend  was  necessary  to  inform  the 
public  of  the  location  of  the  establishment  The 
wooden  sign  that  hung  below  the  second  story 
windows  read  "  'rus  Bundy  and  Son,"  the  syncopa- 
tion of  the  first  syllable,  due  to  a  part  of  the  sign 
having  blown  away,  never  having  been  remedied. 
Had  the  whole  sign  blown  away  it  would  have  been 
considered  an  unnecessary  vanity  to  have  procured 
another. 

Margaret  entered  through  the  narrow  doorway. 
The  interior  did  nothing  to  lower  the  standard  of 
dinginess  set  up  by  the  outside.  It  was  lighted  by 
the  little  daylight  the  begrimed  windows  allowed  to 
filter  through  and  by  two  white  globed  gas  burners. 
A  wooden  counter  divided  the  public  space  from  the 
area  where  two  clerks  conducted  their  activities. 
There  was  no  pomp  and  ceremony  about  the  place. 
She  asked  for  Mr.  Bundy,  and  was  directed  by  a 
gesture  toward  the  open  door  on  her  left. 

53 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

The  door  opened  into  a  room  about  fifteen  feet 
square.  Across  one  end  of  it  was  a  long  table  piled 
haphazard  with  letters,  newspapers,  cigar  butts,  cata- 
logues, samples  of  material  and  a  few  stray  hats  and 
coats.  Against  the  opposite  wall  stood  a  high  book- 
keeper's desk  of  the  kind  prevalent  in  the  days  of 
Uriah  Heep,  its  top  adorned  with  a  tiny  balustrade 
to  keep  one's  pen  from  rolling  off  on  the  floor,  and 
its  sloping  bosom  covered  with  an  ancient  and  germ- 
bearing  piece  of  felt,  once  green,  now  dust-colored. 
An  overgrown  wooden  stool  stood  before  this  relic, 
its  rungs  loose  and  slipping  out,  so  that  it  gave  the 
impression  of  being  just  about  to  lie  down  on  all- 
fours.  Upon  this  dangerous  piece  of  furniture  a 
carpet  saddle  was  tacked,  showing  that  some  one  had 
confidence  in  its  integrity. 

The  office  filing  system  was  visible.  Upon  a 
wooden  shelf  in  the  corner  stood  what  appeared  to 
be  an  edition  of  some  old  encyclopedia,  but  what 
was  really,  to  the  initiated,  merely  a  series  of  boxes 
shaped  like  books,  so  arranged  that  when  one 
received  a  business  letter  that  for  some  reason  he 
wished  to  keep,  he  could  put  it  in  one  of  these  and 
have  it  the  next  time  he  wanted  it,  provided  he  could 
remember  which  box  he  put  it  in. 

54 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

There  were  two  men  in  this  room  when  Margaret 
entered,  and,  as  neither  of  them  paid  any  attention 
at  all  to  her,  she  removed  a  paper  parcel  from  the 
chair  by  the  table  and  sat  down. 

She  looked  curiously  at  the  men.  One  of  them 
was  a  thin  stoop-shouldered  person  with  a  worried 
black  mustache,  and  soft,  brown  eyes  that  also 
seemed  to  be  continually  worried  about  something. 
The  frown  between  his  eyebrows  formed  a  capital 
"  W  "  which  might  possibly  have  stood  for  "  worry  " 
too.  He  had  the  air  of  a  quiet  unoffending  animal 
that  felt  it  was  being  unnecessarily  harassed  by 
something  or  other.  She  looked  for  some  mark  of 
identification  upon  him,  and  saw  in  a  moment  as  he 
stood  near  her  that  there  was  a  letter  "  B  "  on  his 
cuff  links. 

The  other  man  was  a  well-dressed,  middle-aged 
person  who  was  in  a  very  bad  humor.  It  was  ap- 
parent from  the  conversation  that  some  materials  he 
had  ordered  had  not  been  delivered.  His  ill-humor 
was  further  heightened  by  the  fact  that  he  seemed 
to  have  sent  a  check  to  pay  for  the  order  in  question. 

"  I  can't  tell  about  it  right  now,"  observed  the 
man  she  surmised  to  be  Bundy,  at  last ;  "  the  order 
isn't  on  the  books,  and  I'm  sure  if  I  had  received 

55 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

your  letter  I  would  have  filed  it  under  '  Orders/  or 
'  Paints  and  Oils.'     You  saw  it  wasn't  there." 

"  You  might  have  filed  it  under  '  Upkeep,'  "  sug- 
gested the  visitor,  sarcastically,  glancing  at  the  vol- 
umes of  the  pseudo-encyclopaedia. 

The  other  shook  his  head  seriously. 

"  No,  I  couldn't  have  done  that.  Of  course,"  the 
other  returned  seriously,  "  we  have  no  record  of  the 
check.  We  just  gather  all  the  checks  together  every 
day  and  send  them  to  the  bank  and  charge  the 
whole  amount  to  receipts." 

"That's  no  way  to  do  business,"  snapped  the 
visitor. 

The  other  passed  his  hand  over  his  hair. 

"  That's  the  way  we  have  always  done  it,"  he  re- 
turned. "  My  father  did  it  fifty  years  ago." 

"  All  right,  Mr.  Bundy,"  the  man  said,  "  and  your 
son  may  do  it  fifty  years  hence,  but  it  won't  be  my 
checks."  He  picked  up  his  hat  and  coat. 

"  We  will  find  your  order  in  a  day  or  so.  I  will 
start  them  looking  now  for  it,''  explained  Bundy, 
patiently. 

"  And  when  you  fill  it,"  retorted  the  other  as  he 
went  out,  "  you  may  do  so  with  the  satisfaction  of 
knowing  it  will  be  the  last  one  you  will  get." 

56 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

Bundy  fumbled  with  the  papers  on  his  desk. 

"  All  right,"  he  muttered,  as  the  man  passed  out 
of  ear-shot.  "  Go  and  take  your  confounded  busi- 
ness with  you." 

He  absently  put  a  paper  clasp  on  a  sheaf  of  papers 
and  then  took  it  off  again.  Then  he  suddenly 
seemed  to  become  aware  of  her. 

"  Is  there  something  I  can  do  for  you  ? "  he 
asked. 

"  I  am  from  the  Waring  Company,"  she  began. 

"  More  trouble,"  he  said.  "  Do  you  know,  we 
never  got  that  paint?  " 

"  We  have  your  receipt  for  it." 

"  That  must  be  a  mistake.  We  haven't  the  stuff, 
and  it  couldn't  have  vanished  into  thin  air.  Wait  a 
moment  until  I  call  the  foreman  of  my  stock-room." 

He  went  to  the  door.  "  Benjamin,"  he  said,  "  call 
Scaggs  down  here." 

He  returned  and  went  to  the  desk  where  there 
was  a  small  pasteboard  box  with  holes  in  it.  He 
took  off  the  lid  and  looked  at  the  contents  with 
much  interest.  He  turned  suddenly  to  Margaret. 

"  Ever  see  anything  like  that  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  looked  into  the  box.  In  it  was  a  green  and 
white  bug  about  the  size  of  the  end  of  her  thumb 

57 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

which  had  a  pair  of  horns  at  its  head  and  another  at 
its  tail.     It  had  a  number  of  yellow  spots  on  it. 

"Those  little  spots,"  he  said,  "are  parasites  that 
have  been  boarding  inside  him.  They  very  carefully 
eat  away  all  his  muscular  structure,  making  sure  not 
to  injure  his  vital  organs,  in  order  that  he  may  live 
as  long  as  possible.  And  when  he  can't  stand  the 
strain  any  more  and  dies,  they  leave  him  and  lay 
their  eggs  inside  another  similar  organism." 

"  That's  interesting,"  said  Margaret.  "  Did  you 
find  him  here  ?  " 

"  No,  I  brought  him  down  so  I  could  watch  him 
and  note  what  happened." 

A  man  entered  the  room.  He  was  a  gaunt,  big- 
boned  individual  of  about  fifty-five  or  sixty.  He 
wore  a  vest  and  no  coat.  He  had  bright  piercing 
eyes  and  very  short  lips,  which  allowed  his  teeth  to 
show.  This,  together  with  a  bristling  short  beard 
and  mustache,  gave  him  an  appearance  like  a  squir- 
rel. 

"  Scaggs,"  said  Mr.  Bundy,  "  were  you  here  on 
the  day  that  Warings  said  they  delivered  that 
stain  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  what  day  they  said  they  delivered 
it." 

58 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

"  On  the  twelfth." 

"  I  don't  see  what  difference  it  makes,  but  I  wasn't 
here  on  the  twelfth." 

"  Couldn't  it  have  been  received  in  your  ab- 
sence ?  " 

"It  would  be  there  if  it  had  been  received, 
wouldn't  it  ?  "  demanded  the  squirrel. 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  it  would.  But  Warings  say  they 
have  a  receipt  for  it." 

"  Oh,  yes,"  returned  the  other  with  an  air  of  im- 
mense sophistication,  "  these  people  always  have 
receipts.  On  the  day  of  judgment  they'll  have 
passes  through  the  Pearly  Gates  too." 

Margaret  did  not  attempt  to  reply  to  this,  but 
made  the  suggestion  that  they  all  three  take  a  look 
among  the  stock. 

"  That's  just  a  waste  of  time,  Mr.  Bundy,"  ob- 
jected Scaggs. 

"  Well,  we'll  do  it  anyway,"  returned  Bundy. 

They  walked  down  a  narrow  hallway  and  up  a 
stairway  with  round  newel  post  and  flat  hand-rail 
like  those  prevalent  in  private  houses  fifty  years 
ago,  the  squirrel  grumbling  all  the  while.  The 
second  floor  was  a  big  storeroom.  At  one  end 
were  shelves  on  which  were  placed  side  by  side 

59 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

paints,  oils,  stains  and  varnishes,  with  no  apparent 
system.  They  scanned  all  these  shelves. 

"  How  do  you  know  where  to  look  for  things?" 
Margaret  asked. 

"  I  keep  it  all  in  my  head,"  Scaggs  replied, 
proudly. 

"  It  simply  ties  us  up  when  he  is  away,  too,"  ob- 
served Bundy.  "How  do  you  keep  your  stock- 
room ?  "  he  demanded  of  Margaret. 

She  explained  something  about  their  system, 
which  was  run  like  a  bank,  so  that  the  amount  of 
any  given  material  furnished  to  the  various  depart- 
ments of  the  Company,  subtracted  from  the  amount 
of  that  material  purchased  by  the  Company,  always 
equaled  the  amount  of  the  material  in  the  stock-room. 

"  Don't  see  how  you  do  it.  We  have  stock  in  this 
room  that  we  don't  know  we  have." 

"I  wouldn't  say  that,  sir,"  broke  in  Scaggs. 
"  There  isn't  a  pound  of  material  in  this  building  that 
I  don't  know  of." 

"Well,  that  may  be,"  observed  Bundy.  "But 
just  for  instance,  what's  in  that  wire  bound  box  there 
at  the  bottom  of  the  pile  ?  " 

Scaggs  gazed  at  it  blankly. 

"  I    can't  tell  you  offhand,"  he  replied,   stoutly, 

60 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

"  but  I  could  tell  as  soon  as  I  got  it  out  from  under 
the  pile." 

"That's  what  I  mean,"  said  Bundy,  while  the  fore- 
man, very  red  in  the  face,  trudged  after  them. 

"  I  am  sure  it  is  not  down  here,"  said  Margaret. 
"  Let's  go  up-stairs." 

"  But  we  never  put  paints  there,"  protested 
Scaggs. 

"  That  is  a  good  clew,"  she  observed.  "  You 
probably  haven't  looked  there." 

They  went  up  the  steep  wooden  steps,  Margaret 
rather  cautiously,  for  the  steps  had  no  hand-rail,  and 
the  square  hole  that  admitted  them  to  the  floor 
above  was  commanded  by  a  huge  trap-door  stand- 
ing menacing  and  almost  perpendicular  at  the  edge 
of  it,  as  if  ready  to  close  at  any  instant.  The  third 
floor  was  entirely  filled  with  hardware.  It  was  very 
dark,  and  she  had  difficulty  in  seeing,  but  she  knew 
she  would  recognize  the  Waring  Company's  box  by 
the  metal  reinforcements  at  the  corners.  However, 
she  saw  no  such  box. 

"  What  did  I  tell  you  ?  "  cried  the  foreman,  trium- 
phantly. "  Don't  talk  about  receipts  to  me." 

Margaret    felt  somewhat   despondent  about  her 

errand,  especially  as  she  had  told  Mr.  Potter  that 

61 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

she  would  not  return  without  finding  the  goods. 
There  could  be  no  doubt  that  they  had  been  de- 
livered. And  yet  they  did  not  seem  to  be  there. 
There  was  no  cellar  to  the  building.  The  first  floor 
was  devoted  entirely  to  offices.  And  she  had  ex- 
plored the  second  and  third  so  carefully  that  she 
was  convinced  that  the  shipment  was  not  there. 
She  was  just  about  to  go  down  the  steep  wooden 
stairs  again  when  her  eye  fell  once  more  upon  the 
trap-door. 

It  was  about  five  feet  high  and  opened  up  against 
the  sloping  roof  at  the  rear  of  the  building. 

"  What  is  behind  that  ?  "  she  demanded,  grasping 
at  a  straw. 

"  That  door,"  said  the  foreman,  impressively,  "  has 
never  been  moved  in  twenty  years.  Nothing  could 
get  back  of  that." 

There  was  no  way  to  look  back  of  it.  She  put 
her  finger  on  its  top  edge. 

"  Very  little  dust,"  she  said,  "  for  twenty  years." 

Bundy  snapped  his  fingers  suddenly. 

"  Why,"  he  exclaimed,  "  confound  it,  if  I  didn't 
have  them  put  that  door  down  myself  the  day  they 
spilled  banana  oil.  The  odor  almost  drove  us  crazy 

down-stairs." 

62 


STANDSTILL  STREET 

Margaret  smiled.  "  Let's  put  it  down  again." 
Scaggs  grumbled,  but  found  an  iron  bar  and  with 
it  unloosed  the  hook  that  held  the  door  upright. 
He  and  Bundy  gradually  lowered  the  heavy  square 
of  lumber  until  it  was  flush  with  the  floor.  Behind 
it  in  the  shadow  stood  a  wooden  box  reinforced  at 
the  corners.  It  was  marked : 

"  From  the  Waring  Company. 
Packed  September  i2th" 


CHAPTER  VI 

RUSTED  COGS 

"  "\7X)U  did  not  tell  me  your  name,"  Bundy  said, 
•*•  as  she  was  about  to  go. 

"  Margaret  York." 

"  Well,  Miss  York,  I — will  you  step  into  my  office 
for  a  moment  ?  " 

She  followed  him  into  his  topsy-turvy  sanctum. 

"  I  want  to  talk  to  you  about  my  office,"  he  be- 
gan. "There  isn't  any  system  here.  Everything 
is  at  sixes  and  sevens.  It  seems  to  me  that  busi- 
ness is  getting  more  and  more  complicated  every 
year,  and  somehow  or  other  we  aren't  able  to  keep 
up  with  it." 

He  passed  his  hand  over  his  hair  in  a  harassed 
way. 

"What  I  need  here  is  a  thorough  overhauling 
of  things.  You  saw  the  stock-room — old  Adam 
Scaggs  has  got  it  so  tangled  up  that  nobody  can 
make  head  nor  tail  of  it,  and  he  is  so  pig-headed 

64 


RUSTED  COGS 

you  couldn't  move  him  with  a  dynamite  bomb. 
Then  my  files  here — I  don't  seem  to  be  able  to  keep 
things  straight.  I  work  from  early  morning  until 
late  at  night,  and  the  work  piles  up  until  I  nearly 
lose  my  mind." 

He  rose  and  paced  up  and  down  the  room,  his 
hands  clasped  behind  his  back. 

"  I  have  a  good  business.  We  deal  in  paints, 
glass  and  hardware,  and  supply  the  stores  of  all  the 
towns  along  the  river  from  here  down  to  the  bay. 
The  storekeepers  used  to  come  up  on  the  boat  one 
day  and  we  would  fill  their  orders,  take  their  money 
and  send  the  material  down  on  the  boat  the  next 
day.  But  now  they've  got  to  telephoning  their 
orders,  and  asking  for  thirty  days'  credit,  and  two 
per  cent,  off  for  cash  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  And 
they've  got  to  splitting  up  their  bills  and  paying 
with  notes  running  thirty,  sixty  and  ninety  days. 
Why,  our  bookkeeping  is  a  regular  snarl.  And 
where  we  used  to  keep  one  brand  of  white  paint,  one 
thickness  of  glass,  and  one  kind  of  sash-lock,  now 
we  have  to  keep  several  in  order  to  satisfy  our  cus- 
tomers. The  business  has  got  so  complicated  that 
we  can't  keep  up  with  it.  Something  has  to  be 
done.  I'm  losing  trade  right  along." 

65 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

He  stopped  before  the  shelf  in  the  corner  and  re- 
garded it  mournfully. 

"  Now  there  are  my  files — what  ought  I  to  do 
about  them  ?  "  he  demanded. 

"Those  aren't  files,"  she  asserted  laughing. 
"  They  are  simply  hiding  places." 

"How  do  Warings  file  their  letters?"  he  de- 
manded. 

"What  record  do  you  keep  of  your  outgoing 
letters  ?  "  she  asked,  by  way  of  reply. 

"  We  press-copy  them  in  those  books." 

" Letters  on  all  subjects  in  the  same  book?" 

"Yes." 

"Isn't  it  rather  difficult  to  find  a  letter? " 

He  stroked  his  chin  and  the  frown  deepened. 

"It's — it's  maddening,"  he  said.  "Those  tissue 
paper  sheets  stick  together  until  they  drive  you 
crazy." 

"What  you  need,"  she  told  him,  "is  a  vertical 
filing  system  arranged  alphabetically  by  names  of 
your  correspondents.  You  have  a  series  of  folders 
in  which  your  letters  lie  flat  as  if  they  were  in  a 
book,  and  in  each  folder  is  all  the  correspondence 
with  one  particular  person,  both  outgoing  and  in- 
coming. It  is  very  entertaining.  It  gives  you 

66 


RUSTED  COGS 

the  whole  history  of  any  particular  case  in  an  in- 
stant." 

"That's  what  I  want,"  he  asserted,  earnestly. 
"  That's  the  sort  of  thing  I  want." 

He  fumbled  nervously  with  some  papers  on  his 
desk. 

"  What  would — how  can  I  get  a  person  who 
knows  about  these  things?  I  need  some  one." 

"  It's  very  easy,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"How?" 

"  Just  ask  her." 

"  But  the  trouble  is — now  you1  re  just  the  kind  of 
person  I  want." 

"  That's  what  I've  been  thinking." 

He  turned  on  her  in  surprise. 

"  Would  you  come  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  thoughtfully.  She  remem- 
bered Mr.  Potter's  advice  to  leave  tke  Waring 
Company  as  soon  as  she  could  and  take  a 
place  with  a  firm  that  needed  her  services.  This 
looked  like  such  a  firm.  The  chance  that  ex- 
isted for  bringing  order  out  of  chaos  was  very 
alluring. 

"Why,  yes,"  she  responded,  "I  would  come — if 

everything  could  be  arranged  satisfactorily." 

67 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  think  we  can  make  a  financial  arrangement  to 
suit  you,"  he  said. 

"  Then,"  she  replied,  "  I  see  no  obstacle." 

She  returned  to  her  office  and  in  half  an  hour  or 
so,  when  Mr.  Potter  was  disengaged,  she  entered  his 
room. 

"  Did  you  find  it  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Of  course.  You  wouldn't  have  let  me  in  the 
office  if  I  hadn't." 

"  Where  did  you  locate  it  ?  "  he  continued,  smiling. 

She  told  him  the  story  of  her  visit. 

"  Poor  old  Bundy.  He  has  an  awful  time,"  he 
commented. 

"  Mr.  Potter,  tell  me  this,"  she  said ;  "  has  he  a 
very  good  business  ?  " 

"  Excellent,"  he  responded,  immediately.  "  All 
those  down-river  storekeepers  swear  by  Bundy  and 
Son.  But  I  don't  think  he  makes  much  money. 
He  needs  the  voltage  raised.  There  isn't  a  strong 
enough  current  running  through  the  place  now." 

"  Do  you  think  more  system  and  order  and  so 
forth  would  accomplish  that?" 

"  Undoubtedly.  System  is  the  foundation  of  mer- 
cantile self-respect.  When  you  have  that  you  are 

beginning  to  hit  your  stride.     A  business  is  like  an 

68 


RUSTED  COGS 

army.  It  never  begins  to  accomplish  things  until  it 
moves  like  a  machine." 

"I  am  glad  to  hear  you  say  that,"  she  replied, 
"  because  I  have  decided  to  try  to  systematize 
Bundy  and  Son." 

"  I  thought  you  would,"  he  said. 


69 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  PLAY  CALLED  JULIUS  CAESAR 

ABOUT  three  months  later  an  automobile 
stopped  before  Number  56  Severn  Street.  A 
well-groomed  man  in  a  fur  coat  alighted  and  en- 
tered the  outer  office  of  Bundy  and  Son.  He 
nodded  curtly  to  the  clerk  at  the  counter  and  passed 
on  to  Mr.  Bundy's  office.  There  he  stood  for  a  mo- 
ment aghast.  All  of  the  old  furniture  and  junk  that 
had  been  in  that  room  since  time  was  had  disap- 
peared. In  its  place  in  the  centre  of  the  room  was 
a  wide  flat-topped  desk  with  swivel  chairs  on  either 
side  of  it.  There  was  no  litter  of  papers  on  this 
desk.  A  rug  covered  the  floor.  Several  units  of  a 
vertical  filing  case  stood  in  one  corner.  In  the  other 
was  a  table  with  a  typewriter  on  it.  At  the  desk, 
with  her  back  to  the  door,  Margaret  York  was  sitting. 

The  man  entered  quietly. 

"  Is  Mr.  Bundy  in  ?  "  he  asked,  in  a  moment. 

She   turned  around,  and  her  face  broke  into  a 

smile. 

70 


THE  PLAY  CALLED  JULIUS  C^SAR 

"  Why  no,  Mr.  Potter,  he  is  not.  But  I  am  his 
secretary.  Perhaps  you  could  transact  your  busi- 
ness with  me." 

"  No  business  to  transact,"  he  replied,  laughing. 
"I'm  just  looking  about  without  intending  to  pur- 
chase." 

"Well,  what  do  you  think  of  us?"  she  asked, 
eagerly. 

"Great!"  he  replied.  "How  did  you  do  it? 
How  did  you  get  rid  of  the  old  heirlooms  ?  " 

"  The  roll-top  desk  that  sat  over  there  against  the 
wall  went  first.  I  said,  '  Mr.  Bundy,  this  isn't  a 
desk,  it's  a  cemetery.'  We  cleaned  it  out  and  dis- 
covered twenty  letters  he  had  been  looking  for  for 
months.  We  exiled  that  desk  and  got  this  one  in  its 
place.  When  we  got  the  filing  cases  and  the  rest  of 
the  things  there  wasn't  room  for  the  old  stuff,  so  we 
cleaned  house.  Looks  luxurious  now,  doesn't  it?"  , 

She  rose. 

"  We  have  a  little  private  room  in  here  I  wish  you 
to  see,"  she  said,  opening  a  door  at  the  end  of  the 
office.  "Place  for  conferences.  Also,  we  have  all 
our  samples  and  catalogues  on  these  shelves.  I 
have  a  card  index  to  them  here,"  she  said,  touching 
a  drawer  beside  her. 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  What's  that  second  card  index  drawer  for  ?  "  he 
asked. 

"  That,"  she  said,  her  eyes  sparkling,  "  is  my 
record  of  stock." 

"  You  keep  the  record  of  stock  ?  " 

"  Yes.  I  sign  all  receipts  for  everything  de- 
livered to  us,  and  nothing  leaves  without  an  order 
from  Mr.  Bundy." 

"  Jupiter !     Did  you  poison  that  Scaggs  party  ?  " 

"  I  hypnotized  him.  For  about  a  month  I  con- 
versed with  him  at  my  leisure,  inserting  the  idea 
into  his  head  piece  by  piece,  and  then  one  day  he 
suggested  it  to  me.  He  feels  it  is  his  own  scheme." 

"  You  can  tell  down  to  the  last  gill  then  just  how 
much  of  everything  you  have  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  Yes." 

"  Let  me  see  ;  how  much  turpentine  have  you  ?  " 

She  took  out  a  card  and  told  him. 

"  You  had  better  get  more,"  he  said  quietly.  "  It 
is  going  up  again." 

She  turned  the  card  upside  down  in  the  drawer  so 
that  a  little  projecting  piece  stood  up  above  the  other 
cards. 

"  That  means  order  more,"  she  explained. 

"  I   don't   know  what  we  are  going  to  do  if  the 

72 


THE  PLAY  CALLED   JULIUS  C^SAR 

price  of  turpentine  keeps  rising,"  he  went  on.     "I 
think  we  shall  have  to  go  into  some  other  business." 

They  returned  to  the  other  room. 

"  You  have  done  well,"  he  said,  taking  up  his  hat. 

"Thank  you.  Aren't  you  sorry,"  she  said,  mis- 
chievously, "  you  let  so  valuable  a  person  go  ?  " 

"  I  ?     I  haven't  by  any  means  let  you  go." 

She  raised  her  eyebrows.  But  just  at  that  mo- 
ment Mr.  Bundy  came  in. 

An  hour  or  so  later  Bundy  looked  up  from  the 
letters  before  him. 

"  Miss  York,"  he  asked,  "  how  influential  a  person 
is  Potter  at  Warings  ?  Is  his  word  law  ?  " 

"  Yes.     He  is  the  commander-in-chief." 

"  He's  a  cold  man,  isn't  he  ?  " 

"  More  or  less." 

"  I  thought  so.  I  heard  a  story  of  a  man  up  there 
who  discovered  this  Number  1088  stain  for  them,  on 
which  they  have  made  at  least  half  a  million  dollars 
this  last  year ;  and  they  haven't  raised  his  salary  a 
penny." 

"  I  know  that  is  true,"  she  admitted.  "  The  man's 
name  is  Evans.  He  has  threatened  many  times  to 
leave  them." 

"  That  sounds  like  a  very  cheap  thing  to  do." 

73 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  It's  hard  to  tell  about  those  things,"  she  replied. 

Just  then  the  telephone  bell  rang.  She  reached 
for  the  instrument. 

"  Is  Miss  York  there  ?  "  said  a  voice. 

"  Yes,  Mr.  Potter,"  she  said,  quickly. 

She  looked  up  at  Bundy  with  an  amused  expres- 
sion. 

"  Speaking  of  angels,"  he  observed.  But  he  did 
not  guess  the  feeling  of  pleasant  excitement  that 
seized  her. 

"  You  are  very  accurate  at  guessing  people,"  said 
the  voice  over  the  wire. 

"  A  man  can  keep  few  secrets  from  a  woman  who 
has  been  his  stenographer." 

"  Will  you  go  to  the  theatre  with  me  to-night  ?  " 

"  No,"  she  replied,  pleasantly,  drawing  lines  on 
the  blotter  with  her  finger  nail. 

"  I  admire  your  decisive  manner.     Why  ?  " 

"  Well,  you're  just  a — business  acquaintance." 

"  How  can  I  remedy  that  ?  " 

"  Is  it  necessary  ?  "  she  asked,  with  mischief  in  her 
eye. 

"  Absolutely." 

"  Then  you  might  call  on  me  some  time,  I  sup- 
pose." 

74 


YOU    ARE    A    VERY    SUDDEN    PERSON 


THE  PLAY  CALLED  JULIUS  CAESAR 

"  Will  that  fix  it  ?  " 

"  Try  it." 

"  Very  good.     Good-bye." 

She  hung  up  the  receiver. 

"  You  don't  mind  how  you  talk  to  them,  do  you  ?  " 
observed  Bundy. 

At  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  the  same  automobile 
rolled  up  to  Number  56  Severn  Street  that  had  rolled 
up  there  earlier  in  the  day.  The  same  fur-coated 
gentleman  alighted  and  entered  the  outer  office.  He 
met  Margaret  coming  out  with  her  hat  on. 

"  Miss  York,  I  am  on  the  point  of  calling  upon  you 
this  afternoon  so  that  I  may  take  you  to  the  theatre 
this  evening." 

She  stopped  short.  "  You  are  a  very  sudden 
person.  You  take  my  breath  away  with  your  sud- 
denness." 

"  The  car  is  out  here,"  he  said. 

She  drove  away  with  him,  gave  him  a  cup  of  tea 
— which  he  disliked,  but  drank  manfully — in  the 
parlor  of  her  boarding-house  and  sent  him  home  so 
she  could  have  her  dinner  in  time  to  dress  to  go  with 
him  again  in  the  evening. 

"  By  the  way,  what  is  the  play  ?  "  she  asked,  as  he 
was  going. 

75 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"Julius  Caesar." 

"  Oh,  yes.     Comic  opera,"  she  said,  smiling. 

She  was  surprised  to  have  him  deny  it  earnestly. 

"  It's  Shakespeare,"  he  assured  her.  "  It's  the 
only  one  of  his  I  ever  saw,  but  I  always  see  it 
every  time  they  play  it  here.  It's  a  great  piece  of 
work." 

At  the  theatre  she  was  astonished  to  find  him 
actually  tremendously  excited  over  the  play.  She 
was  used  to  the  judicial  calm  with  which  people 
usually  sit  through  Shakespeare,  and  his  enthusiasm 
was  refreshing. 

"  It's  a  shame  that  this  Mark  Antony,"  he  told  her, 
"couldn't  have  been  in  some  big  business.  If  he 
had  been  living  to-day  he  would  have  owned  every 
railroad  in  the  United  States.  Every  time  I  hear 
that  funeral  speech  of  his  I  think  if  I  could  just  string 
together  words  like  that,  there  wouldn't  be  any  way 
of  stopping  me.  I'd  be  a  multi-millionaire  in  a 
month.  He  starts  out  talking  with  the  crowd  cold 
and  favoring  the  other  side,  and  when  he  finishes 
they  can't  do  enough  for  him.  If  he  had  been  sell- 
ing something  instead  of  making  an  oration,  he 
would  have  taken  more  orders  then  than  he  could 

have  filled  in  the  following  ten  years." 

76 


THE  PLAY  CALLED   JULIUS  C^SAR 

"  Do  you  always  measure  up  things  by  business 
standards  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  I  have  to,"  he  said  simply.  "  I  haven't  enough 
of  that  thing  they  call  culture  to  be  able  to  judge 
things  accurately  from  any  other  standpoint.  But 
with  business  standards  I  am  on  firm  ground." 

She  thought  a  moment.  Something  Bundy  had 
said  was  in  her  mind. 

"  Speaking  of  business  standards,"  she  said,  sud- 
denly, "  would  you  say  that  charity  had  any  place 
in  business?" 

"  No." 

She  looked  at  him  in  surprise. 

"  I  believe,"  he  said,  "  that  in  his  personal  life  a 
man  should  be  charitable.  But  charity  in  business 
is  simply  favoritism.  You  should  play  the  game 
strictly  according  to  the  rules  yourself,  and  you 
should  make  everybody  earn  every  penny  he  gets. 
Then  you  get  efficiency  for  yourself  and  self-reliance 
for  every  one  else." 

"  I  have  wondered,"  she  said,  with  a  note  of  simple 
curiosity  in  her  voice,  "  why  Evans  was  never  raised. 
What  was  the  theory  of  that  ?  " 

"  I  am  glad  you  asked  me,"  he  replied.  "  We  of- 
fered Evans,  when  we  employed  him,  the  choice  of 

77 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

four  thousand  a  year  flat,  or  two  thousand  a  year 
with  a  royalty  from  everything  he  discovered.  He 
took  the  big  salary.  That  was  his  error." 

"  And  your  company  profited  by  his  error  ?  " 

"  I  seem  to  feel  a  certain  criticism  in  your  tone," 
he  said,  meeting  her  eyes. 

"  No,"  she  replied,  frankly,  "  I  am  trying  to  un- 
derstand." 

"  Then  you  must  remember  that  business  cuts  the 
line  of  justice  square  in  the  middle.  It  is  just  as  un- 
fair to  give  a  man  a  dollar  he  hasn't  earned  as  it  is 
to  deprive  him  of  one  that  rightfully  belongs  to  him. 
In  the  case  of  Evans,  we  had  confidence  in  him  and 
he  did  not  have  confidence  in  himself.  Therefore 
we  earned  the  money  and  he  did  not." 

"  I  can  see  that  is  quite  just,"  she  replied,  "  pain- 
fully just." 

"  Of  course.  One  side  of  justice  is  always  painful. 
But  to  go  a  little  further  into  the  question,"  he  con- 
tinued, "  if  we  were  to  allow  sentimental  reasons  to 
make  us  lenient  in  taking  money  that  rightfully  be- 
longed to  us ;  then  when  a  period  of  bad  business 
came — and  no  firm  is  exempt  from  such  a  thing — 
when  every  penny  was  needed,  it  might  be  that  that 
former  leniency  would  be  just  the  factor  that  would 

78 


THE  PLAY  CALLED  JULIUS  C^SAR 

prevent  us  from  riding  out  the  storm.  In  which 
case  numerous  innocent  creditors  would  lose  money. 
That  wouldn't  be  justice." 

"  Furthermore,"  he  observed,  "  no  case  is  as 
simple  as  it  at  first  appears.  Think  of  this  phase. 
If  we  explain  to  Evans  that  we  consider  that  such 
and  such  a  product  would  sell  well  and  he  perfects 
that  product,  whose  insight  has  been  the  keenest — 
his  or  ours  ?  " 

"  I  think  I  begin  to  see,"  she  said.  She  was  just 
a  little  ashamed  of  having  allowed  a  suspicion  of 
injustice  on  his  part  to  take  root  in  her  mind. 

"  Tell  me,"  she  said,  lest  he  might  read  from  her 
silence  the  thought  that  had  been  in  her  head,  "  do 
you  ever  fear  a  big  business  reverse  for  the  Waring 
Company  ?  " 

"Frequently,"  he  said,  smiling.  "The  price  of 
turpentine  '  doth  bestride  us  like  a  Colossus,'  as 
one  of  the  fellows  in  the  play  said.  It  is  costing  us 
more  and  more  every  day  to  manufacture  our 
products.  The  parties  who  use  linseed  oil  where  we 
use  turpentine  have  a  tremendous  advantage  over 
us.  For  they  can  use  an  imitation  linseed  oil.  It 
isn't  as  good,  by  any  means,  but  it  is  cheaper,  and 
they  are  crowding  us  out." 

79 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Are  you  alarmed  ?  " 

"  That  is  just  a  spectre  in  the  distance,"  he  replied, 
smiling  contentedly.  "  We  are  still  very  much 
alive." 

She  parted  from  him  with  a  feeling  of  having  seen 
a  little  beyond  the  outer  wall  of  his  spirit.  When 
she  had  made  a  light  in  her  room,  she  found  a  letter 
on  her  dressing  table  from  Mr.  Bruce.  It  was  a 
check  for  two  hundred  and  fifty  dollars,  which  was 
the  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  a  little  piece  of  property 
Mr.  Lacey  had  had  an  interest  in,  which  had  been 
for  many  months  in  litigation.  It  was  a  very  wel- 
come addition  to  her  little  surplus,  which  she  was 
hoarding  carefully.  Mr.  Bruce' s  letter  explained  the 
circumstances  of  the  transaction  and  congratulated 
her  on  having  received  any  money  at  all  from  it. 

"  You  will  be  interested  to  know,"  he  went  on, 
"that  David  had  a  picture  in  the  Salon  which 
caused  much  favorable  comment.  It  was  a  painting 
of  the  interior  of  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  remarkable,  I 
understand,  for  the  wonderful  quality  of  the  light 
through  the  stained  glass.  He  had  spent  months  in 
the  study  of  the  old  stained  glass  in  order  that  he 
might  understand  his  subject,  and  get  just  the  right 
quality.  But  I  fear  it  has  not  been  an  altogether 

80 


THE  PLAY  CALLED   JULIUS  C^SAR 

profitable  venture.  For  he  has  become  so  interested 
in  the  old  glass  that  he  has  not  painted  a  stroke  for 
many  months.  He  is  now  at  Chartres  preparing  a 
monograph  on  the  windows  of  the  cathedral.  I 
sometimes  regret  that  David  has  a  little  income  of 
his  own.  He  does  not  seem  able  tofind  himself" 

Margaret  folded  up  the  letter. 

"  Poor  David,"  she  said. 


81 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  THING  TO  Do  WITH  A  KEY 

MR.  BUNDY  was  worried.  The  harassed  and 
hunted  look  was  more  than  usually  in  evi- 
dence. He  passed  his  hand  over  the  hair  at  the 
back  of  his  head  a  great  many  times.  He  appeared 
not  to  be  devoting  his  attention  to  the  work  before 
him.  This  was  unusual.  He  was  accustomed  to 
struggle  hard  with  his  tasks.  He  would  view  a 
question  from  every  possible  and  every  impossible 
angle.  He  plunged  into  a  subject  like  a  boat  in  a 
fog,  feeling  his  way  along  and  wondering  what  was 
beyond.  He  would  sit  for  a  long  while  staring  at 
a  letter,  letting  its  message  seep  into  his  brain,  and 
waiting  for  decision  to  spring  forth.  But  decision 
only  sprang  forth  after  a  deadly  hand-to-hand  con- 
flict with  his  soul, — and  even  then  it  left  behind 
sickening  doubt  as  to  its  correctness.  But  to-day 
there  was  none  of  this  grueling  concentration.  His 
attention  wandered. 

"Well,"  Margaret  demanded,  presently,  looking 

up,  "  what  is  it  ?  " 

82 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

"  What's  what?"  he  asked,  dully. 

"  You're  stewing  over  something.  What  is  on 
your  mind  ?  " 

He  pushed  his  papers  aside  as  if  they  annoyed 
him. 

"  I'm  worried  sick  over  this  business,"  he  said, 
irritably.  "  I  need  five  hundred  dollars  to  carry  me 
through  the  month,  and  I  can't  collect  a  penny  for 
thirty  days.  Isn't  that  enough  to  worry  about?" 

"You  have  too  much  of  your  money  tied  up,"  she 
asserted. 

"  I  know  that,"  he  replied,  despondently.  "  I 
have  five  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  material  up- 
stairs in  this  building.  '  Water,  water  everywhere,'  " 
he  added,  "  '  and  not  a  drop  to  drink.'  " 

"That's  it  exactly,"  she  went  on.  "Mr.  Pot— 
what  I  mean  to  say  is,  I  have  been  told  that  the  best 
rule  of  business  is  to  keep  turning  over  the  stock. 
No  material  should  stay  in  your  wareroom  more 
than  four  months,  so  that  the  same  capital  will  earn 
a  profit  for  you  three  times  a  year." 

He  fidgeted  in  his  chair. 

"  I  know,"  he  said  impatiently,  "  that's  all  right 
for  theory.  But  if  you  can't  sell  a  thing  you  can't 
sell  it,  and  that  settles  it." 

83 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Let  me  tell  you  something,"  she  said  ;  "  you 
have  up-stairs  five  or  six  hundred  dollars'  worth  of 
an  expensive  white  enamel  paint  that  you've  never 
sold  a  gallon  of." 

"  I  know  that." 

She  rose  and  opened  the  drawer  of  her  card  index. 

"  You  have  a  hundred  gallons  of  it,  and  you  paid 
five  dollars  and  a  quarter  a  gallon  for  it.  It  is 
supposed  to  retail  at  eight  dollars  a  gallon.  That  is 
real  money  lying  there." 

"  That's  just  what  drives  me  to  distraction,"  he 
said,  wearily.  "  And  there  is  no  demand  for  that 
article  among  our  customers.  That  investment  was 
a  dead  loss." 

"  If  you  had  that  money  it  would  tide  you  over 
until  your  accounts  began  to  come  in." 

"  If  I  had  it." 

She  turned  to  him  eagerly. 

"  Will  you  give  me  permission  to  get  that  money 
back  if  lean?" 

"  What's  your  scheme  ?  "  he  asked,  with  interest. 

"  Will  you  give  me  permission  ?  " 

"  Certainly  I'll  give  you  permission.  But  I  don't 
think  you'll  need  the  permission." 

"  Wait  and  see." 

84 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

He  smoothed  the  back  of  his  head  doubtfully. 
As  he  was  leaving  at  the  close  of  the  day,  he  stopped 
by  her  desk. 

"  I  am  going  down  the  river  to-morrow,"  he  said, 
jocularly.  "  When  I  come  back  please  have  that 
money  for  me.  Put  it  right  under  the  paper-weight 
there." 

"Very  well,"  she  replied. 

On  fine  mornings  she  made  it  a  point  to  walk  to 
the  office.  It  brought  color  to  her  cheeks,  and 
cleared  her  mind.  The  following  day  was  crisp  and 
cold,  and  the  sun  was  pleasantly  warm.  Accepting 
the  invitation  of  these  two  extremes,  she  finished  her 
breakfast  somewhat  ahead  of  schedule  and  gave 
herself  wholly  over  to  adventure  by  following  a 
hitherto  untried  route  on  her  walk. 

No  adventure  of  very  great  moment  occurred, 
however.  But  possessed  by  a  spirit  of  curiosity  she 
made  one  pause  in  her  progress.  Her  journey  led 
her  along  a  street  on  which  were  being  erected 
several  rows  of  regular  city  houses.  With  a  half- 
formed  idea  in  her  head,  she  favored  one  of  the 
houses  with  a  tour  of  inspection. 

A  gentleman,  who  was  hovering  about  with  a 
spider-like  intentness,  issued  forth  and  seized  her  in 

85 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

his  figurative  tentacles.  But  she  was  not  alarmed. 
In  fact,  she  gave  him  a  certain  amount  of  attention. 
And  as  she  listened  to  his  talk,  she  looked  about  her. 
She  was  amused  to  note  that  while  none  too  much 
care  had  been  lavished  on  the  timbers  and  laths,  and, 
in  general,  the  bones  of  the  structures,  yet  they  were 
to  have  all  such  luxuries  as  parquetry  flooring, 
mirrors  in  bedroom  doors,  lights  in  closets  that 
burned  when  you  opened  the  door,  and  as  many 
such  showy  accoutrements  as  possible  to  charm  the 
eye  and  open  the  purse  of  the  prospective  buyer. 
The  idea  shaped  itself  in  her  mind.  She  asked  the 
man  the  name  of  the  builder  of  the  houses. 

"  You  mean  the  agent  ?  "  he  asked,  eagerly.  "  I 
am  the  agent." 

"  No,  I  mean  the  builder." 

He  seemed  disappointed,  but  told  her  the  builder's 
name  was  Callahan.  She  thanked  him  and  de- 
parted. When  she  arrived  at  her  office,  she  looked 
up  the  name  of  Callahan  in  the  telephone  book  and 
called  up  his  office. 

"  Is  Mr.  Callahan  there  ?  " 

"  Who  wants  him  ?  " 

"  Bundy  and  Son,"  she  replied,  confidently.     She 

had  discovered  that  every  one  knew  of  Bundy  and 

86 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

Son,  and  the  name  was  an  open  sesame.  Mr.  Cal- 
lahan  presently  answered. 

"  Mr.  Callahan,"  she  said,  "  do  you  intend  to  use 
any  white  interior  paint  on  those  houses  at  Fairfax 
Street  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Why  not  use  an  enamel  paint?  " 

"  Too  expensive,"  said  Mr.  Callahan,  laconically. 

"  Wouldn't  it  help  sell  the  houses,  supposing  you 
could  get  it  cheap  ?  " 

"  Yes."     A  pause.     "  How  cheap  ?  " 

"  We  have  a  hundred  gallons,"  she  said,  "  of 
Albatross  Special,  we  will  sell  for  five  dollars  and  a 
quarter  a  gallon,  if  we  can  sell  it  to-day." 

"  Albatross  Special,  did  you  say  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

She  waited  anxiously.  She  could  actually  feel 
her  heart  beating. 

"I'll  take  it,"  said  the  voice  at  her  ear,  in  a  mo- 
ment. 

"  Thank  you.     And  the  money  ?  " 

"  Let  you  have  it  this  afternoon." 

She  banged  down  the  receiver  excitedly.  She 
called  for  the  office  boy,  who  came  precipitously. 

"  Benjamin,"  she  exclaimed,  pointing  to  the  paper- 

87 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

weight  on  Mr.  Bundy's  side  of  the  desk,  "  don't  you 
move  that  paper-weight  all  day  long  on  pain 
of  instant  dismissal.  I  have  something  I  want  to 
put  under  it  to-night." 

The  boy  gazed  at  her  open-mouthed. 

"  Yes,  ma'am,"  he  said. 

"  And  while  you  have  your  mouth  open,  call  Mr. 
Scaggs  for  me,  please." 

She  was  in  an  overwhelmingly  good  humor.  In 
marked  contrast  to  her  entered  presently  Scaggs, 
glum  and  dyspeptic.  His  spirit  had  been  further 
depressed  by  the  fact  that  Benjamin  had  just  stolen 
up  behind  him  and  shouted  his  name  in  such  a  loud 
tone  that  he  had  jumped  and  torn  his  trousers  on  a 
nail.  Altogether  he  was  in  a  very  low  frame  of 
mind. 

"  Mr.  Scaggs,"  said  Margaret,  "  will  you  get  down 
that  hundred  gallons  of  Albatross  Special — you  know 
what  I  mean — and  send  it  to  this  address  ?  " 

Scaggs'  face  was  a  mask  of  stone. 

"  Mr.  Bundy  left  no  orders  for  me  to  send  that 
out,"  he  asserted,  stolidly. 

"  I  give  you  the  order  now." 

"  I  take  my  orders  from  Mr.  Bundy." 

"  Continue  to  take  them  from  Mr.  Bundy,"  she 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

retorted,  pleasantly.  "  I  will  get  one  of  the  clerks 
to  do  it." 

He  blocked  her  way.  "  No  one  is  going-  to  touch 
a  thing  in  my  stock-room  without  orders  from  Mr. 
Bundy,"  he  asserted  tenaciously. 

"  Mr.  Bundy  is  away.  I  am  in  charge,"  she  said 
quietly. 

"  He  did  not  tell  me  so." 

She  began  to  lose  patience. 

"  In  addition  to  that,"  he  asserted,  "  the  delivery 
wagons  are  all  down  at  the  wharves." 

"  I  can  remedy  that." 

She  stepped  to  the  telephone,  and,  calling  a  local 
transfer  company,  directed  them  to  send  a  large 
wagon  immediately. 

"  Now,  there's  no  use  doing  that,"  cried  Scaggs, 
angrily.  "  No  one  is  going  to  touch  that  stock 
without  doing  physical  violence  to  me." 

She  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do.  No 
amount  of  explanation  could  convince  the  old  man. 
It  was  plain  to  be  seen  that  he  felt  this  was  just  an 
effort  to  put  him  in  a  subordinate  position,  and  he 
was  prepared  to  show  that  it  could  not  be  done. 

"  Where  is  Mr.  Bundy  to-day  ? "  he  exclaimed, 
belligerently.  "  I  am  going  to  find  out  if  my  work 

89 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

is  to  be  interfered  with  in  this  way.  I  have  been  in 
this  office,  man  and  boy,  more  than  forty  years,  and 
I  do  not  intend  to  knuckle  under  to  any  one.  I 
want  to  know  where  Mr.  Bundy  is." 

Mr.  Bundy  being  on  a  river-boat  at  that  instant 
it  was  impossible  to  communicate  with  him.  Mar- 
garet did  not  answer.  She  was  trying  to  think  of  a 
way  to  gain  her  point.  Scaggs  rapped  on  the  desk 
with  his  knuckles. 

"  Miss  York,  I  say  where  is  Mr.  Bundy  ?  " 

Leisurely  she  turned  her  head  and  looked  at  him. 

"  Call  that  number,"  she  said,  writing  down  a 
telephone  number  at  random. 

She  put  the  telephone  instrument  on  the  slide  of 
her  desk  and  he  sat  down  to  it  with  his  back  to  the 
door.  She  rose  and  taking  some  catalogues  that 
were  on  the  desk  put  them  in  place  in  the  little 
private  office.  When  she  returned,  the  old  man, 
not  at  all  used  to  telephone  service,  was  struggling 
to  get  the  number.  She  passed  behind  him  and 
went  to  the  door.  She  stood  at  the  threshold  for  a 
moment  with  a  strange  smile  on  her  lips.  Then 
very  softly  she  closed  the  door  and  locked  it. 

The  little  force  in  the  outer  office  watched  this 

proceeding  with  interest.     At  that  time  there  hap- 

90 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

pened  to  be  no  customers  at  the  counter.  She 
turned  to  the  two  young  men  behind  it. 

"  I  wish  you  would  come  up-stairs  and  help  me," 
she  said,  quietly.  "  Benjamin  can  take  charge  of 
the  office." 

They  nodded  and  followed  her  toward  the  rear 
hall. 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  looking  at  the  boy  with 
a  curious  light  in  her  eyes. 

"  Take  good  care  of  the  office,  Benjamin,"  was 
all  she  said,  however. 

The  boy  heard  their  footsteps  echo  along  the  hall 
and  up  the  old  creaking  stairs.  And  then  all  was 
quiet.  He  gazed  curiously  at  the  closed  door  to 
Mr.  Bundy's  office,  leaning  ungracefully  over  the 
counter  on  his  stomach  to  obtain  a  view  of  it.  No 
explanation  of  this  phenomenon  occurring  to  him, 
however,  he  retired  to  his  own  particular  corner  of 
the  room,  tilted  his  own  particular  chair  up  against 
the  wall  at  his  own  particular  angle  and  gazed  com- 
fortably into  space,  considering  absently  the  design 
and  construction  of  the  black  metal  chandelier  that 
grew  out  of  the  ceiling,  and  wondering  why  it  was 
necessary  for  it  to  be  fat  in  one  place  and  thin  in 
another. 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

From  the  next  room  Scaggs'  voice  made  itself 
heard  now  in  violent  altercation  with  some  one  over 
the  telephone.  Benjamin  made  a  mental  note  that 
the  stock-room  foreman  was  angry,  and  smiled  be- 
nignantly.  Never  is  irritation  in  others  more  pleas- 
ant than  when  one  is  young. 

The  voice  at  the  telephone  ceased  and  there  was  a 
sound  of  footsteps  approaching  the  door.  Benjamin 
and  the  chair  came  down  with  alacrity  upon  their  six 
collective  legs,  and  the  former  gazed  about  for  some 
plausible  means  of  employment.  Nothing  more 
feasible  occurring  to  him  he  slid  into  a  chair  before 
the  typewriter  and  began  to  write,  "The  quick 
brown  fox  jumped  over  the  lazy  dog."  He  heard 
the  knob  of  the  door  rattle.  Demure  as  a  girl — the 
very  picture  of  industry — his  fingers  rattled  over  the 
keys.  For  once  Scaggs  would  be  able  to  find  no 
room  for  fault.  He  shot  back  the  carriage  and  be- 
gan, "  The  quick  brown " 

And  then  there  burst  out  in  that  quiet  and  peace- 
blessed  place  a  multisonous  roar,  as  though  sixty 
times  the  six  hundred  troopers  of  Balaklava  had 
thundered  through  and  were  charging  without  stop- 
ping to  reason  why  into  the  very  midst  of  Mr. 

Bundy's  private   office.     Or  so  it  seemed   to   the 

92 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

astounded  picture  of  innocence  in  the  outer  office, 
who  sprang  breathless  into  the  middle  of  the  floor 
whence  all  but  him  had  fled  and  gazed  aghast  at  the 
quivering  panels  of  the  door.  What  did  it  all  mean  ? 
He  took  a  step  forward  and  stopped  uncertainly. 
The  voice  of  Scaggs  burst  forth  in  sonorous  and 
fulminating  eloquence,  blazing  with  brimstone  and 
the  names  of  the  saints. 

The  strategic  delicacy  of  Benjamin's  position  was 
only  too  apparent  to  him.  If  he  stood  close  by  with 
the  air  of  being  ready  to  lend  a  willing  hand  at  the 
proper  moment,  when  Scaggs  broke  down  the  door 
(as  he  would  in  course  of  time,  together  with  the 
rest  of  the  building)  it  was  quite  apparent  that  the 
first  object  open  for  blame  and  chastisement  would 
be  little  Benjamin.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  simply 
sat  serenely  at  his  typewriter  and  tried  to  pretend 
that  he  had  not  heard  the  deafening  assault  on  the 
door,  Scaggs  would  not  believe  him. 

It  was  a  nice  question.  But  perhaps  the  latch  of 
the  door  was  stuck  and  Scaggs  had  not  been  patient 
enough  to  disengage  it.  He  had  never  known  the 
door  to  be  locked  during  office  hours  before.  The 
solution  seemed  the  most  plausible  one.  The  situa- 
tion must  be  handled  with  diplomacy.  He  stole 

93 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

forward  and  waiting  for  a  lull  in  the  storm  said  in  a 
voice  studiously  respectful : 

"  Mr.  Scaggs,  have  you  tried  turning  the  knob  to 
the  left?" 

A  soft  answer  turneth  away  wrath.  This  evidently 
does  not  apply  to  kind  and  friendly  suggestions. 
There  was  a  pause  of  a  fraction  of  a  second,  during 
which  Benjamin  waited  for  thanks  and  approval, 
and  then  there  opened  the  sluice  gates  of  a  veritable 
Niagara  of  frenzied  and  helpless  wrath.  The  boy 
backed  away  and,  thoroughly  demoralized,  broke  for 
the  stairs. 

On  the  floor  above  he  found  the  moving  of  the 
paint  nearly  complete.  In  awed  accents  he  told  of 
the  struggle  of  the  foreman,  ending  up  with  the 
statement  that  he  was  afraid  to  stay  there  any  more. 
Margaret  looked  at  the  state  of  her  campaign,  and 
then  handed  the  boy  the  key  and  remarked  that  the 
door  might  possibly  be  locked. 

Benjamin  did  not  view  this  part  of  the  proceeding 
with  pleasure.  He  hesitated,  about  to  demur.  But 
an  idea  occurred  to  him.  He  took  the  key  and  hur- 
ried down-stairs.  Once  there,  he  thrust  it  under  the 
door  and  ran  for  his  life. 

The  last  box,  containing  all  the  loose  cans  that 

94 


THE  THING  TO  DO  WITH  A  KEY 

were  on  the  shelves,  had  been  lowered  into  the  wagon. 
The  wagon  was  about  to  start  down  the  alley,  and 
the  door  unhooked  preparatory  to  closing,  when 
Scaggs  thundered  up  the  stairs.  His  face  was  crim- 
son, his  short,  bristly  whiskers  stood  out  straight 
from  his  face  and  his  teeth  shone  angrily  between 
his  lips.  He  looked  more  than  ever  like  a  red  squir- 
rel that  had  worked  itself  into  a  fit  of  apoplexy  in  a 
revolving  cage. 

"  Stop  that  wagon  !    Stop  that  wagon  ! "  he  cried. 

Just  then  the  wind  blew  the  door  shut  with  a  jar 
that  reverberated  through  the  old  building,  and 
drove  every  thought  from  his  mind  for  a  moment. 
Under  cover  of  this  Margaret  stole  quietly  down  the 
stairs. 

At  four  o'clock  that  afternoon  she  put  a  check 
under  Mr.  Bundy's  paper-weight. 


95 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

MR.  BUNDY  was  more  comfortable  and  con- 
tented with  his  work  than  he  had  ever  been 
since  his  father's  death.  He  was  really  more  inter- 
ested in  the  habits  of  insects  than  in  anything  else 
in  the  world,  and  viewed  his  business  in  the  light 
of  a  necessary  irritation.  But  since  that  business 
was  now  beginning  to  take  on  the  appearance  of 
order  and  was  no  longer  a  continual  thorn  in  his 
side,  he  found  he  had  abundant  time  to  devote  to  the 
services  of  his  bugs,  and  was  correspondingly  happy. 
He  had  a  little  table  all  of  his  own  in  the  inner 
office  which  was  full  of  dire  and  grievous  specimens 
of  beetle.  The  more  unwholesome  a  bug  was  in 
appearance,  the  more  he  seemed  to  love  it.  If  a 
cold  misshapen  creature  with  hard  shell  and  clinging 
feet  dragged  itself  over  the  back  of  his  hand  he  did 
not  jump  up  hastily  in  alarm,  but  stopped  to  count 
the  animal's  feet.  He  was  hail-fellow-well-met  with 

any  bug  at  all. 

96 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

Just  now  he  was  interested  in  a  number  of  worm- 
like  objects  he  kept  domiciled  in  a  fruit  jar  in  the 
inner  office.  He  would  eagerly  explain  that  these 
creatures  were  larvae — larvae  that  he  had  hatched 
out  himself  nearly  three  years  before  and  nurtured 
with  great  care  ever  since.  And  caterpillar-like 
creatures  that  they  were  they  scarcely  seemed  worth 
the  trouble. 

But  in  the  darkened  room  they  glowed  with 
phosphorescence,  which  shone  from  rings  that  en- 
circled their  brown  bodies.  They  were  the  offspring 
of  a  common  species  of  glowworm — that  is,  as  he 
would  explain,  they  were  the  offspring  of  such  an 
organism  on  their  mother's  side.  But — and  here 
was  the  excitement  and  interest  of  the  whole  matter 
— their  father  was  a  beetle. 

At  any  rate,  Bundy  had  been  led  by  scientific 
statements  to  believe  that  the  female  of  the  species 
was  a  glowworm  and  the  male  was  a  beetle.  This 
would  scarcely  seem  like  a  probable  conjugal  ar- 
rangement, but  Bundy  believed  in  it,  and  he  was 
proceeding  to  prove  it.  He  had  the  young  in  his 
possession  tightly  sealed  in  a  jar.  He  had  been 
feeding  their  voracious  throats  with  centipedes  for 
three  seasons  now,  and  it  was  drawing  near  the  time, 

97 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

according  to  the  scientists,  when  they  should  decide 
what  sex  they  were  to  be  and  take  steps  accordingly. 
Soon  he  would  find  out. 

And  it  was  high  time.  For  it  was  no  easy  matter 
to  feed  his  charges. 

"  I  never  knew  centipedes  to  be  so  scarce,"  Bundy 
would  complain,  as  though  he  were  speaking  of 
peaches,  or  watermelons.  In  days  gone  by  it  had 
been  possible  to  step  out  into  the  woods  beneath  the 
waving  leaves  and  gather  a  bounteous  harvest.  But 
he  had  exhausted  whole  colonies  of  them.  Now  he 
would  spend  his  Saturday  afternoons  far  up  the  river 
and  would  return  with  well-filled  boxes  of  the  de- 
sirable creatures.  If  he  had  kept  it  up  much  longer 
the  state  would  have  had  to  pass  a  game  law  to  keep 
them  from  being  exterminated. 

But  presently,  all  in  due  time,  one  of  the  worms 
decided  he  was  to  be  a  male  and  forthwith  proceeded 
to  bury  himself  in  the  ground.  Bundy  had  waited 
three  long  patient  years  for  this.  His  joy  and  ex- 
citement knew  no  bounds.  It  was  actually  going 
through  the  prophesied  motions  on  its  way  to  beetle- 
hood.  He  had  watched  it  day  by  day,  like  a  proud 
father  gazing  at  an  only  son.  There  was  no  over- 
whelming weight  of  worry  upon  him  now  and  he 

98 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

would  enjoy  his  simple  little  triumph  with  the  pleas- 
ant consciousness  of  following  in  the  footsteps  of  the 
scientists. 

Margaret  was  keeping  a  very  close  watch  on  the 
stock-room.  When  she  found  they  had  on  hand  a 
large  quantity  of  a  certain  kind  of  goods  that  was 
selling  slowly,  she  would  endeavor  to  get  rid  of  the 
surplus,  at  cost,  or  sometimes  at  a  little  more,  and 
let  Mr.  Bundy  invest  the  money  in  something  else 
that  would  sell  more  quickly.  Naturally  there  were 
certain  things  for  which  there  was  no  great  demand, 
but  which  it  was  necessary  for  them  to  keep  on  hand, 
but  she  kept  down  the  supply  of  these  as  close  as  she 
dared. 

It  was  a  varied  and  interesting  business.  The 
stores  in  all  the  towns  down  the  river  represented  a 
growing  community.  Little  stores  in  little  towns 
had  grown  to  be  big  stores  in  big  towns  within  the 
memory  of  Bundy  and  Son  ;  and  men  drove  up  in 
automobiles  now,  whose  fathers  used  to  come  in  in 
rawhide  boots  and  sometimes  without  collars  upon 
their  shirts.  And  even  now  the  man  who  wore  a 
broadcloth  coat  lined  with  fur  received  no  greater 
welcome  than  the  down-river  fourth-class  postmaster 
with  the  down-river  mud  on  his  boots.  Men  of  al- 

99 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

most  every  stage  of  civilization  entered  on  terms  of 
absolute  equality.  But  while  she  was  there  Margaret 
saw  but  one  woman. 

That  happened  one  day  as  she  was  sitting  alone 
in  the  office.  She  heard  the  rustle  of  a  skirt  and 
turned  to  see  standing  beside  her  a  woman  dressed 
in  a  brown  suit  of  very  fine  cloth  and  wearing  an 
expensive  set  of  furs.  The  woman  was  about  thirty- 
five  or  forty  years  old,  and  was  quite  good-looking. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  have  come  into  the  wrong  place," 
she  said,  hesitating. 

"  No,  you  haven't,"  Margaret  said.  "  Sit  down 
and  let  me  sell  you  some  paint." 

"  Do  you  know,"  the  woman  confessed,  "  I  thought 
this  was  a  ship-chandler's  place.  It  was  so  quaint 
and  old-fashioned,  it  took  my  breath  away  to  find 
all  this  office  equipment.  What  I  am  looking  for," 
she  went  on  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  "  is  a  pair 
of  real  old  ship  lamps.  I  am  furnishing  a  den  that 
is  built  just  like  a  boat  cabin,  and  I  need  the  lamps. 
Perhaps  you  know  of  a  place  ?  " 

"  I  do  know  of  a  place,"  replied  Margaret,  imme- 
diately. "  It  would  be  hard  to  direct  you  to  it,  but 
if  you  can  wait  twenty  minutes,  it  will  be  time  for 
me  to  leave  and  I  can  go  with  you." 

100 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

"  I'll  wait  an  hour." 

She  sat  down  and  Margaret  went  on  with  her 
work.  But  when  Mr.  Bundy  came  in  she  rose,  with 
a  light  of  recognition  in  her  eyes.  He  hesitated  a 
moment.  Then  a  look  of  relief  came  over  his  face. 

"  Oh,  it's  Miss  Garnet,  isn't  it  ?  "  he  exclaimed. 

"Exactly,  Mr.  Bundy,"  she  replied.  "I  didn't 
realize  it  was  your  office  I  was  invading." 

"  The  sign  has  gotten  so  weather-beaten  I  can 
scarcely  read  it  myself,"  he  said,  apologetically. 

She  explained  her  errand,  and  said  that  Margaret 
had  promised  to  go  lamp- hunting  with  her.  Bundy 
turned  to  Margaret. 

"Oh — ah — Miss  York,  this  is  Miss  Garnet,"  he 
explained  by  way  of  introduction.  "  Miss  Garnet, 
like  yourself,  is  also  a  notable  business  woman." 

At  this  double-barrel  endeavor  to  be  compli- 
mentary, both  women  made  a  more  or  less  success- 
ful effort  to  be  retiring  and  deprecating.  But  it 
roused  their  interest  in  each  other.  When  Margaret 
left  to  put  on  her  hat  and  coat,  Miss  Garnet  extracted 
a  brief  history  of  her  from  Mr.  Bundy.  And  just  as 
they  were  about  to  get  into  Miss  Garnet's  electric  au- 
tomobile preparatory  to  giving  search  for  the  lamps, 

Margaret  contrived  to  have  forgotten  her  handker- 

101 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

chief  and  returned  to  the  office  for  the  apparent  pur- 
pose of  getting  it. 

"  Who  is  this  Miss  Garnet  ?  "  was  what  she  asked, 
however,  of  Bundy. 

Mr.  Bundy  shook  off  the  cares  of  life  long  enough 
to  laugh. 

"Why,"  he  said,  "she's  an  interior  decorator. 
Whenever  any  one  has  an  abundance  of  money  to 
invest  in  making  a  house  a  thing  of  beauty  and  a 
joy  forever,  he  goes  to  Miss  Garnet.  She  has  a 
wide  reputation  and  has  made  a  great  deal  of 
money." 

In  order  to  get  to  the  little  ship-chandler's  shop 
Margaret  had  in  mind,  they  had  to  leave  the  auto- 
mobile at  the  curb  of  one  of  the  wide  streets  and 
walk  up  a  narrow  thoroughfare  just  wide  enough  to 
allow  a  vehicle  to  run  between  the  curbs.  On  the 
thin  little  street,  nestled  between  the  rear  of  two 
large  warehouses,  sat  a  tiny  shop  with  a  dingy, 
small-paned  show  window  through  which  could  be 
seen  dimly  a  collection  of  things  of  the  sea — a  store- 
house of  old  iron  and  tarnished  brass. 

In  the  room  on  the  second  floor  they  found  a 
treasure  house  of  nautical  plunder,  and  from  its 
depths  presently  came  forth  the  identical  pair  of 

IO2 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

lanterns  Miss  Garnet  had  pictured  in  her  mind. 
But  having  received  them  she  could  not  tear  herself 
away.  She  was  like  a  child  in  its  grandmother's 
attic.  She  must  see  everything.  The  result  was 
that  it  was  late  when  they  came  out  on  the  street 
again. 

"  You  will  dine  with  me  to-night,"  announced 
Miss  Garnet,  as  they  stepped  into  the  machine. 

Margaret  protested,  but  the  other  overruled  her 
without  ceremony. 

"  You  must  see  my  little  house,"  she  said.  "  I 
remodeled  it  myself,  and  designed  everything  in  it. 
And  like  most  people  who  have  done  that  I  am  a 
perfect  bore  to  all  my  friends  with  it.  ' 

"  You  see,"  she  went  on,  "  I  found  this  little 
Colonial  house — not  in  a  very  stylish  location,  but 
there  facing  the  Square  where  it  used  to  be  stylish 
seventy  years  ago — and  bought  it  for  a  ridiculously 
small  sum.  And,  my  dear,  I  tore  out  the  whole  in- 
side of  it,  put  in  electric  lights  and  lots  of  plumbing, 
and  a  garage  in  the  basement,  and  made  a  place 
out  of  it.  And  being  so  unbelievably  old,  it  is  per- 
fectly proper  for  me  to  live  there  without  a  chaperon. 
Although,"  she  added,  "  I  sometimes  tire  of  that  part 

of  it.     You  live  alone,  don't  you  ?  " 

103 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Yes,"  said  Margaret. 

"  Don't  you  get  tired  of  it  now  and  then  ?  " 

"  I  get  tired  of  finding  my  room  at  night  just  ex- 
actly the  same  as  it  was  in  the  morning  when  I  left 
it — except,"  she  amended,  "  for  the  things  of  mine 
trie  maid  has  kept  for  her  own." 

The  machine  slowed  up  by  a  quaint  little  house 
at  the  corner  of  a  street  opposite  the  Square.  It 
swung  round  the  corner  and  drove  in  between  two 
lighted  gate-posts  at  the  side  of  the  house.  The 
wheels  of  the  automobile,  running  over  an  iron  bar 
in  the  short  driveway,  opened  the  garage  doors  be- 
fore them  and  they  rolled  into  shelter.  Miss  Garnet 
stepped  out  of  the  machine  and  turned  on  the  light. 
Together  they  closed  the  doors  and  bolted  them  and 
went  up  the  steps  to  the  first  floor. 

They  landed  in  a  hallway  from  which  started  the 
stair  to  the  upper  floors.  It  was  a  delicate  Colonial 
stair  with  four  slender  balusters  on  each  step,  each 
one  turned  in  a  different  pattern.  At  the  foot  they 
curled  into  a  spiral  newel,  the  very  centre  of  which 
was  marked  by  a  cut  glass  sphere  which  caught  and 
reflected  the  red  glow  of  the  lamp  on  the  table  and 
seemed  like  a  ball  of  fire  resting  there.  On  the  floor 

was  a  soft  eastern  rug.     Before  her  was  the  fire- 

104 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

place  topped  with  a  delicately  moulded  mantel  shelf 
supported  at  each  end  by  two  slender  Corinthian 
columns.  On  the  andirons  burned  three  logs,  sput- 
tering and  crackling  and  sending  dancing  shadows 
over  the  ceiling. 

Miss  Garnet  glanced  at  some  mail  on  the  mahog- 
any side  table  and  then  led  her  guest  up-stairs.  She 
showed  her  into  a  dainty  bedroom.  The  girl  sank 
into  a  chintz-covered  chair  with  a  sigh  of  content- 
ment. Whatever  may  be  the  advantages  and  virtues 
of  a  Spartan  life,  luxury  and  the  appearance  of  luxury 
are  inspiring  and  pleasant  things.  Margaret  could 
not  help  wondering  if  her  own  business  career  would 
ever  be  so  successful  as  to  enable  her  to  have  a 
house  of  her  own. 

They  had  a  good  dinner  in  the  quaint  oval  dining- 
room.  Miss  Garnet  looked  young  and  fresh  in  a 
black  net  dress  which  showed  off  her  white  neck  and 
arms. 

"  I  am  wearing  black  now  a  good  deal,  my  dear," 
she  said.  "  It  gives  one  a  meretricious  air  of  slender- 
ness.  If  I  continue  to  gain  in  weight,  I  shall  have 
to  take  to  rolling  on  the  floor  a  hundred  times  before 
breakfast." 

Margaret  laughed. 

105 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Ah,  well,"  Miss  Garnet  went  on,  "  you  are  young 
and  can  afford  to  be  optimistic.  But  the  bloom  of 
my  youth  is  gone.  The  terrible  thing  about  old  age 
is  it  is  inevitable.  If  it  doesn't  come  at  the  end  of 
five  years  it  will  come  at  the  end  of  ten." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  look  at  it  that  way,"  re- 
sponded the  other.  "  If  you  have  accomplished  the 
things  you  have  been  working  for,  there  is  no 
ignominy — is  that  the  word  I  mean  ? — in  old  age." 

Miss  Garnet  drew  an  arm  through  hers. 

"  Sometimes,"  she  said,  "  even  then." 

Margaret  glanced  at  the  clock  in  the  hall. 

"  I  must  go,"  she  said.     "  It  is  getting  late." 

"  No,  no,"  cried  the  hostess,  "  we  are  to  have  a 
visitor  in  a  few  minutes  whom  you  must  meet.  He 
is  a  nice  visitor — a  rich  young  man,  now  at  the 
perfect  age  of  thirty-one.  I  think  he  is  a  little  too 
rich — he  can  afford  too  many  things  to  eat,  and  his 
figure  is  just  a  thought  rotund.  But  he  is  a  forceful 
person  and  his  name  is  mentioned  with  respect  by 
the  newspapers.  He  doesn't  scintillate,  but  he  is 
solid.  It  is  not  possible  to  contradict  him,  for  he 
converses  about  nothing  he  does  not  understand 
from  the  root  up.  For  that  reason  he  is  apt  to  talk 

business." 

106 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

The  front  door  bell  rang. 

"  That  is  doubtless  he — punctual  to  the  dot,"  she 
said. 

"  I  am  sorry,"  said  Margaret,  "  that  I  am  not  more 
elaborately  dressed  for  so  distinguished  a  visitor." 

The  maid  announced  "  Mr.  Potter."  To  her  great 
surprise  her  own  Mr.  Potter  entered. 

"  Oh,"  cried  Miss  Garnet,  "  I  am  so  sorry  you 
know  each  other.  I  thought  I  was  to  have  the 
credit  of  bringing  you  to  each  other's  notice." 

"  No,"  said  Potter,  "  I  must  take  the  credit  of 
having  discovered  Miss  York  myself." 

"  And,"  Margaret  said,  "  I  had  not  been  working 
in  his  office  more  than  a  year  when  he  advised  me 
to  leave." 

"  Willis  Potter,  I  am  ashamed  of  you  !  " 

"To  correct  any  wrong  impression  you  may 
have,"  observed  Mr.  Potter,  "I  will  say  that  the 
move  was  purely  philanthropic.  She  was  too  good 
for  us.  Next  to  yourself,  Miss  Dora,  she  has  a 
better  equipped  mind  for  dealing  with  business  ques- 
tions than  any  woman  I  know." 

Margaret  made  him  a  mocking  courtesy 

"  I  suppose  you  mean,"  said  Miss  Garnet,  "  that 

for  other  purposes  our  minds  are  quite  useless." 

107 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  did  not  say  that.  But  still  I  have  seen  a  thou- 
sand people  who  would  be  so  glad  to  have  good 
business  heads  that  they  would  not  care  if  they  were 
perfect  imbeciles  otherwise. 

"  I  am  reliably  informed,"  he  added,  smiling,  "  that 
you  have  made  a  very  large  sale  of  white  enamel 
paint  recently." 

"  Oh,  Willis,"  said  Miss  Garnet,  "  please.  Who 
wants  to  talk  about  white  enamel  paint  so  soon  after 
dinner?" 

"  Miss  York  does,  I  am  sure,"  said  Potter,  quietly. 

"  All  right.  If  you're  both  sure  you  like  that  sort 
of  thing " 

"  How  did  you  hear  about  this  episode  ? "  Mar- 
garet demanded. 

"  I  try  to  hear  about  everything  that  goes  on,"  he 
said.  "Are  you  the  bookkeeper  at  Bundy  and 
Son's,"  he  asked  presently,  "  as  well  as  all  the  other 
things?" 

"  I  want  you,"  said  Miss  Garnet,  "  to  be  sure  and 
wake  me  up  when  this  business  conversation  is 
finished.  One  reason,"  she  said  to  Margaret,  "  I 
can't  let  Willis  Potter  come  often  is  he  won't  talk 
anything  but  shop.  I  can't  cure  him." 

"  I  like  it,"  said  Margaret,  frankly. 

1 08 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

"There,  Mr.  Potter.  Here  is  a  jewel.  She  ac- 
tually likes  it." 

Potter  waited  patiently  for  this  badinage  to  simmer 
down. 

"  What  I  was  interested  in  finding  out,"  he  said, 
presently,  "  was  whether  you  took  any  interest  in 
the  books  at  all.  I  don't  suppose  you  have  time  to 
do  the  actual  bookkeeping." 

"I  try  to  keep  myself  familiar  with  their 
methods.  You  know  I  took  a  special  course  in 
bookkeeping  at  night  while  I  was  with  your  com- 
pany." 

"  Yes,  I  knew.  What  I  was  going  to  suggest  was 
that  you  go  over  the  accounts  and  see  that  none  of 
those  fellows  down  the  river  order  too  much  from 
you." 

"  How  could  I  tell  ?  " 

"  Use  your  judgment,"  he  said,  smiling.  "  You 
see,"  he  went  on,  "  most  of  us  here  belong  to  a  credit 
association  that  collects  our  bad  accounts  and  warns 
us  of  firms  whose  financial  condition  is  shaky.  But 
Bundy  said  he  wouldn't  join.  Said  he  knew  more 
about  his  customers  than  any  one  else,  and  he  was 
not  going  to  pay  any  one  else  to  tell  him  what  he 

already  knew.     Well,  he  may  be  right,  but  I  think  a 

109 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

little  extra  care  is  necessary.  This  may  be  a  sug- 
gestion for  you." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

"May  I  speak  now?"  asked  Miss  Garnet. 

"  Proceed,"  observed  Potter. 

"  Why  don't  you  change  the  name  of  Bundy  and 
Son  to  Potter  and  York,  or  something  like  that  ? 
You  aren't  giving  poor  Bundy  a  show." 

"  Perhaps  we  shall." 

Potter  took  Margaret  home  in  his  machine. 

"  That  woman  loves  to  irritate  me,"  he  told  her. 
"  She  says  I  am — what  is  her  expression — mentally 
deformed.  She  believes  I  am  developed  all  in  one 
direction.  Naturally,  I  think  always  in  terms  of 
business.  It  is  in  the  world  of  business  I  am  ac- 
complishing things,  if  anywhere  at  all." 

"  Oh,  she  merely  enjoys  teasing  you,"  Margaret 
assured  him. 

"  Yes,  but  there  is  always  an  air  of  superiority 
about  her.  She  never  takes  me  seriously,  and  I 
assure  you  I  am  a  very  serious  person." 

"  I  can  well  believe  it." 

The  machine  stopped  at  her  door. 

"  This  meeting  was  a  pleasant  coincidence,"  he 

said. 

no 


THE  UNFASHIONABLE  SQUARE 

"  I  think  so." 

He  looked  up  at  the  sky. 

"  To-morrow  is  Sunday  and  has  indications  of 
being  a  pleasant  spring  day.  How  would  you  like 
to  take  a  long  automobile  ride  ?  " 

"  I  should  like  it,"  she  said. 

As  she  went  up-stairs  to  her  room  she  was  singing 
softly  to  herself. 


in 


CHAPTER  X 

CAVEAT  VENDOR 

THE  intimacy  between  Miss  Garnet  and  Margaret 
prospered.  The  fact  that  Margaret  had  ambi- 
tion to  succeed  and  was  accomplishing  things  ap- 
pealed to  the  other  woman.  It  was  as  if  she  saw 
her  own  life  lived  over  again.  And  Margaret, 
thrown  with  men  all  day  long,  enjoyed  the  com- 
panionship of  a  woman — for,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  women  have  been  known  to  tire,  momenta- 
rily, of  men's  society,  and  vice  versa.  Miss  Garnet 
invited  her  to  spend  a  week  with  her  at  the  house  on 
the  Square.  The  week  became  two,  three,  a  month 
— and  Margaret  was  not  allowed  to  go.  It  was  an 
agreeable  arrangement  for  both  of  them,  for  their 
living  alone  wore  on  them,  as  much  upon  Miss 
Garnet  after  fifteen  years  of  it  as  upon  Margaret 
after  but  two. 

For  the  human  being  is  not  a  solitary  individual, 

but  requires  companionship.     Dora  Garnet's  solitude 

112 


CAVEAT  VENDOR 

had  assumed  the  proportions  of  a  malady.  She  could 
meet  scores  of  people  in  other  places,  but  her  home 
was  quiet  and  unresponsive.  Some  one  had  once 
diagnosed  her  condition  and  told  her  she  was  suffer- 
ing from  non-marriage.  Which  was  nearer  the  truth 
than  any  one  else  had  ever  come.  Her  view  of  the 
world  was  too  large.  Her  real  home  extended  as 
far  as  she  could  travel  on  the  trains.  She  was  broad 
of  vision.  She  saw  the  world  as  a  big  place  and 
understood  it,  which  was  excellent  for  her  business. 
But  what  she  needed  was  focus.  She  needed  a  tiny 
spot,  to  which  she  could  always  come  back  and  find 
home.  And  her  house  was  not  that. 

If  she  had  not  succeeded  in  business  so  thoroughly, 
she  would  doubtless  not  have  felt  so  strongly  the 
grip  of  loneliness.  Success  was  hers  ;  but  like  most 
people  holding  that  heroic  bauble  in  their  grasp — be 
they  men  or  women — found  that  in  itself  it  was  a 
powerless  talisman.  There  was  something  lacking 
in  her  life — perhaps  it  was  merely  contentment,  per- 
haps it  was  love.  She  had  endeared  no  one  to  her. 
For  while  her  genius  had  given  pleasure  to  thousands 
of  people,  she  could  not  but  admit  that  was  an  acci- 
dental phase  of  it.  She  had  pressed  it  only  for  her 
own  good.  There  had  been  a  man  once — but  the 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

bright  light  ahead  had  been  too  strong.  It  was  all 
she  could  see  then.  Now,  perhaps 

It  was  with  some  vague  intention  of  pointing  out 
the  path  that  she  was  led  to  devote  herself  to 
Margaret,  and  try,  in  her,  to  live  over  again  her 
own  life. 

It  was  now  spring.  The  fickle  lady,  who  had 
been  rubbing  her  eyes  for  some  weeks  past,  was 
apparently  awake.  At  any  rate,  she  had  smiled 
warmly  upon  the  earth  for  a  day  or  so,  and  then,  as 
rain  fell  steadily  for  a  week  it  might  safely  be  sur- 
mised that  she  was  taking  her  bath.  It  was  a  slack 
time  for  Bundy  and  Son.  The  river,  swollen  as 
usual  at  this  time  of  the  year,  by  the  rain  and  the 
melting  snows,  ran  high  and  swiftly  by  the  wharves 
— a  dirty  orange  stream,  swirling  and  eddying  and 
carrying  along  a  great  quantity  of  loot  with  it.  It 
ran  up  over  the  pavement  at  the  foot  of  Severn 
Street,  and  every  day  people  stopped  to  compare 
the  water's  level  with  the  high  mark  of  1883  and 
walked  away  disappointed.  The  river  steamers 
which  ran  all  winter  long  lay  tied  up  at  the  wharves, 
and  the  trade  of  Bundy  and  Son  came  to  a  standstill. 
This  period  was  eagerly  looked  forward  to  every  year 

by  the  office  force,  as  it  gave  them  almost  a  holiday. 

114 


CAVEAT  VENDOR 

Margaret  spent  her  time  with  her  nose  deep  in  the 
books  of  the  firm. 

"  Anything  wrong,  Miss  York  ?  "  demanded  Mr. 
Bundy,  anxiously,  at  the  end  of  two  or  three  days  of 
this. 

"  No,  I  am  just  finding  out  how  much  these  vari- 
ous stores  order  and  how  often  they  do  it.  Also 
how  long  we  have  to  wait  for  our  money." 

He  chewed  his  mustache  uneasily.  A  new 
method  always  annoyed  him.  It  added  complica- 
tions. 

"  What  is  the  advantage  of  that  ? "  he  asked. 

"  It  keeps  me  occupied  during  the  slack  period, 
and  I  find  out  who  the  good  and  bad  customers  are 
— perhaps,"  she  added,  smiling. 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  relieved,  and  went  away  easier 
in  his  mind.  Later  in  the  day  she  came  into  the 
office. 

"  What  sort  of  a  person  is  this  man  Felix  Groh, 
of  Bay  City  ?  "  she  demanded. 

He  made  a  series  of  little  dots  on  the  blotter  with 
his  pencil. 

"  Why — all  right — as  far  as  I  know.  We  never 
had  any  trouble  with  him.  Why?" 

"  Just  curiosity.     I'm  interested." 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"He's  a  short,  stocky,  stubborn  German,"  he 
added,  interested  as  soon  as  he  found  no  business 
trouble  was  involved. 

"  Is  his  business  good  ?  " 

"  He  has  the  biggest  store  in  Bay  City,  and  Bay 
City  has  now  fifty  thousand  inhabitants — since  they 
have  built  the  shipyards  there." 

Later  in  the  day  a  large,  light-haired  man,  whose 
face  was  elusively  familiar  to  her,  entered  the  office. 
He  knew  her  immediately,  and  spoke  to  her  by 
name.  Bundy  looked  up. 

"  Mr.  Bundy,"  said  the  man,  "  my  name  is  Evans. 
I  am  now  with  the  Waring  Company." 

"  How  do  you  do?"  replied  Bundy,  flustered,  as  he 
usually  was  when  he  could  not  decide  what  a  man 
wanted  to  see  him  about.  "Sit  down.  Have  a 
seat.  I've  heard  of  you." 

"  Every  one  in  the  trade  seems  to  have  heard  of 
me,"  said  the  man.  "  I  have  a  reputation,  but  it 
doesn't  do  me  much  good.  I've  found  that  out  try- 
ing to  get  into  business  by  myself." 

"  Aren't  you  satisfied  with  Waring's  ?  "  demanded 
Bundy. 

"No.     It's    too    much    like    a  machine.     Potter 

treats  every  man  up  there  just  like  a  cog  in  a  wheel. 

116 


CAVEAT  VENDOR 

He  would  no  more  show  gratitude  to  a  man  for 
helping  him  out  than  he  would  pour  champagne 
over  his  electric  fan  for  keeping  him  cool." 

Bundy  made  a  noise  in  his  throat  indicative  of 
sympathy. 

"  Why,  after  Number  1088  had  made  such  a  hit  I 
went  in  and  asked  Potter  what  he  was  going  to  do 
for  me.  He  said,  'Why,  Evans,  I  feel  now  that 
we  are  justified  in  keeping  you.  If  you  hadn't 
made  the  discovery  we  should  have  had  to  let  you 
go.'" 

"  Comforting,"  said  Bundy. 

Margaret  looked  up.  "  Didn't  he  offer  you  at 
one  time,"  she  asked  pleasantly,  "  a  little  less  money 
and  a  royalty  on  anything  you  discovered  ?  " 

"  I  didn't  know  that  was  generally  known,"  re- 
plied Evans,  in  surprise.  "  Why,  yes,  he  did.  But 
it  was  a  reduction  of  half  in  my  salary,  and  a  royalty 
on  the  net  receipts  of  the  discovery,  which  meant 
that  before  I  began  to  get  royalties,  a  proportion  of 
the  expenses,  salaries,  interest  charges  and  dividends 
had  to  be  charged  against  it,  which  would  leave  very 
little  for  me.  I  wasn't  impressed  with  that  offer." 

Evans  looked  at  her  thoughtfully. 

"Of    course,"   he   went  on,   after  consideration, 
117 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Mr.  Potter  has  a  difficult  business  to  keep  up.  He 
has  to  hew  right  up  to  the  line,  and  if  somebody  gets 
hit  by  the  chips  I  suppose  you  can't  blame  him. 
They  call  him  the  Iron  Duke,  you  know.  His 
power  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  drives  ahead.  And  if 
you  are  lying  with  your  foot  in  front  of  the  steam 
roller,  he  won't  stop  the  engine.  He  knows  you 
ought  not  to  have  it  there." 

"  He  has  been  very  decent  to  us,"  said  Mr.  Bundy. 
"  He  has  made  several  suggestions  that  have  helped 
us  in  our  business." 

"Why  shouldn't  he?"  demanded  the  other. 
"  Bundy  and  Son  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  out- 
lets the  Waring  Company  has.  You  can  sell  goods 
for  them  that  they  cannot  find  a  market  for  any- 
where else.  You  have  a  unique  set  of  customers. 
They  couldn't  afford  to  have  anything  happen  to 
you.  I  once  heard  Mr.  Waring  say  he  considered 
Bundy  and  Son  as  essential  to  him  as  any  depart- 
ment of  his  own  organization." 

Bundy  looked  at  him  in  mild  surprise.  "  I  had 
no  idea  of  that,"  he  said. 

"  But  I  am  detaining  you  with  idle  gossip,"  Evans 
went  on.  "  What  I  want  to  know  is  this.  Suppose 

you  had  a  chance  to  get  control  of  a  discovery  equal 

118 


CAVEAT  VENDOR 

to  if  not  better  than  Number  1088.  Would  it  inter- 
est you  ?  " 

"  Control?"  asked  Bundy,  fidgeting  in  his  chair. 

"  Yes,  so  you  could  manufacture  it.  You  have 
the  trade  already.  All  you  have  to  do  is  to  manu- 
facture the  material  and  the  rest  runs  of  its  own  mo- 
mentum. You  would  clean  up  twenty  thousand  dol- 
lars a  year." 

The  other  bit  his  mustache. 

"  And  I  might  lose  twenty.  No,  no,"  he  broke 
off,  almost  irritably.  "  I  can't  touch  anything  new." 

"  All  right,"  said  Evans.  He  saw  immediately 
that  it  was  useless  to  talk  to  Bundy.  Presently  he 
rose  to  go. 

"  Have  you  protected  yourself  in  this  new  discov- 
ery? Has  the  Waring  Company  any  chance  to 
claim  it  ?  " 

"  No.  Everything  was  done  in  my  own  time  and 
with  my  own  materials." 

"  Sorry  I  can't  join  you,"  said  Bundy,  a  little  un- 
comfortable at  having  been  abrupt  with  him.  "I 
hope  you  have  better  success  elsewhere." 

Evans  acknowledged  this  belated  diplomacy. 

"  Oh,"  he  said,  turning  back  as  he  was  about  to 

go,  "  I  heard  Mr.  Waring  say  to  Potter  the  other 

119 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

day,  '  Are  Bundy  and  Son  going  to  be  caught  in 
the  Groh  affair  ? '  And  Potter  said  he  thought  not 
— he  believed  he  had  fixed  that.  I  don't  know  what 
it  means,  but  it  may  be  a  tip  for  you." 

Bundy  looked  at  him  blankly.  "  Thank  you,"  he 
said. 

Evans  left.  The  telephone  rang  and  Bundy,  an- 
swering it,  forgot  all  about  the  visitor's  speech.  But 
under  Margaret's  skin  a  flush  had  deepened,  and 
her  lips  were  tightly  closed. 

About  a  week  later  as  they  were  sitting  over  the 
desk,  Mr.  Bundy  passed  over  a  letter. 

"  You  were  talking  about  Felix  Groh  some  days 
ago,"  he  said.  "  Here  is  a  whopping  big  order  from 
him." 

"  Mr.  Bundy,"  she  replied,  after  she  had  looked  it 
over,  "you  remember  what  Evans  said  about  our 
being  caught  by  Groh,  don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes,  but  I  didn't  understand  it." 

"  Then  listen  to  this,"  she  went  on.  "  Groh  has 
been  buying  from  us  for  the  last  three  or  four  years 
about  a  hundred  dollars'  worth  a  month  and  paying 
for  it  at  the  end  of  thirty  days.  But  in  January  and 
in  February  and  again  in  March,  he  bought  over 

twice  as  much  and  hasn't  paid  for  any  of  it." 

120 


CAVEAT  VENDOR 

Bundy  smoothed  the  hair  at  the  back  of  his  head 
uneasily. 

"Are  you  sure  about  that?"  he  muttered,  and 
then  walked  out  into  the  other  room. 

"  Yes,  that's  right,"  he  said,  glumly,  when  he  re- 
turned after  about  fifteen  minutes,  during  which  she 
knew  he  was  out  there  looking  at  the  same  old  fig- 
ures over  and  over  again,  as  if  he  were  hoping  they 
might  change  while  he  was  considering  them. 

"  This  order,"  said  Margaret,  holding  the  letter, 
"  is  the  biggest  one  yet.  I  think  we  had  better  not 
fill  it." 

"  What !  and  lose  one  of  our  best  customers  ?  "  he 
exclaimed. 

"  You  aren't  anxious  to  give  anything  away,  are 
you  ?  "  she  demanded.  "  He  owes  you  seven  hun- 
dred dollars  already." 

He  poked  little  holes  in  his  blotter  with  his  pencil. 

"  I  don't  like  to  offend  these  fellows,"  he  said, 
hesitatingly. 

"  Let's  not  offend  them,  then.  You  hold  up  this 
order  for  a  while,  and  send  me  down  to  Bay  City  to 
see  whether  I  can  find  out  what  the  trouble  is.  If  I 
don't  find  anything  wrong  you  can  ship  the  order. 

If  I  do,  you  will  have  a  good  reason  for  demanding 

121 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

payment  on  the  account  before  shipping  anything 
more  to  him." 

Bundy  drew  a  sigh  of  relief. 

"  All  right,"  he  said,  "  go  ahead." 

When  at  the  end  of  the  day  she  had  put  on  her 
hat  and  coat  and  was  ready  to  go,  he  looked  up  at 
her  with  a  puzzled  expression. 

"  Evans  said  Potter  had  made  the  remark  that  he 
had  '  fixed  things '  so  that  we  would  not  be  caught 
by  Groh.  I  wonder  what  Potter  could  have  meant 
by  that." 

Margaret's  face  became  set  and  hard. 

"  Mr.  Bundy,"  she  said,  "  whenever  you  want  to 
know  the  means  by  which  Mr.  Potter  preserves 
Bundy  and  Son  for  his  own  purposes,  you  are  safe 
in  saying  I  am  that  means." 


122 


CHAPTER  XI 
A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES 

FROM  Severn  Street  wharf  to  Bay  City  is  seventy- 
five  miles  by  the  river.  From  Severn  Street 
station  to  Bay  City  by  rail  is  one  hundred  and 
twenty  miles.  If  you  will  think  of  the  Greek  letter  A 
and  consider  the  apex  of  it  as  Bay  City  and  the 
lower  right-hand  corner  as  the  metropolis  in  which 
the  house  of  Bundy  and  Son  is  located,  you  will 
have  an  idea  of  the  two  routes  between  the  cities. 
The  right-hand  side  of  the  letter  is  the  route  the 
boats  traveled  down  the  South  River.  The  train, 
however,  proceeded  first  along  the  lower  side  to  the 
left-hand  corner,  where  passengers  were  disgorged 
and  reloaded  on  a  minor  and  less  efficient  train 
which  transported  them  in  a  leisurely  manner  up  the 
remaining  side  of  the  triangle  to  Bay  City,  the  track 
following  the  course  of  the  wide,  listless,  unnavigable 
Western  Branch,  a  beautiful  stream  which  poured  its 
lazy  complacent  waters  into  the  South  River  at  Bay 

City  and  was  swept  almost  immediately  out  into  the 

123 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

turmoil  of  the  bay  where  it  knew  peace  no  more. 
At  the  point  where  one  changed  cars  from  the  first 
train  into  the  second  this  Western  Branch  was 
spanned  by  a  venerable  wooden  bridge,  which  had 
the  perpetual  quality  of  always  being  able  to  con- 
vince the  railroad  company  that  it  would  last  just 
one  year  more. 

The  train  which  Margaret  was  to  take  for  Bay 
City  left  at  ten  o'clock  that  night.  It  arrived  at  the 
railroad  bridge  at  twelve,  the  Bay  City  sleeper  was 
left  behind  to  be  attached  to  the  local  which  left  at 
about  four  in  the  morning,  and,  making  poor  time 
of  the  thirty  miles,  got  to  the  destination  at  six 
o'clock. 

As  Margaret  waited  on  the  platform  she  had  a 
pleasurable  sense  of  excitement,  which  the  smell  of 
the  smoke  and  the  ringing  of  locomotive  bells  never 
failed  to  arouse  in  her.  Riding  on  the  train  as  a 
game  was  just  as  alluring  to  this  lady  of  twenty-two 
as  it  had  been  to  the  little  girl  of  two  with  the  cheeks 
like  red  apples.  The  train  pulled  in  with  a  great 
screeching  of  air  brakes,  the  porters  alighted  with 
their  little  stools,  she  made  her  way  along  the  be- 
wildering line  of  cars  asking  every  person  in  a  blue 

uniform  the  same  question,  until  at  last  she  found 

124 


A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES 

her  destination,  surrendered  her  bag,  mounted  the 
steps  and  walked  down  the  canyon  between  the 
green  curtains,  greatly  disturbed  by  their  changing 
contour,  hunting  for  a  number.  She  found  it  at 
length. 

The  train  started,  her  bag  was  presently  brought 
to  her  and  her  ticket  taken  away  from  her.  Mar- 
garet disappeared  presently  between  the  curtains  of 
her  berth.  The  train  rumbled  on,  lights  flashed  by 
the  windows,  and  then,  after  a  while,  all  was  steady 
darkness.  It  was  some  time  later,  just  as  she  was 
passing  from  consciousness  into  the  land  of  dreams 
that  she  heard  a  strangely  familiar  voice  as  some  one 
walked  up  the  aisle.  She  was  wide  awake  in  a 
minute,  but  she  could  not  decide  where  she  had 
heard  that  voice  before  or  whether  perhaps  she  had 
merely  dreamed  she  had  heard  it. 

Presently  she  fell  into  a  condition  of  mental  sus- 
pension that  is  possible  in  a  sleeping  car,  during 
which  the  victim,  while  not  awake,  seems  to  be 
aware  of  the  steady  roll  of  the  wheels,  the  deep-toned 
baying  of  the  locomotive  whistle,  and  the  steady 
procession  of  human  beings  up  and  down  the  aisle, 
talking  in  low  tones  muffled  by  the  heavy  curtain. 

Then  without  having  been  asleep  she  woke  to  find 

125 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

the  train  standing  still.  The  voice  of  some  one  talk- 
ing rose  up  beneath  her  window  and  passed  on 
quickly,  dying  off  into  a  mere  murmur.  Raising 
the  window  shade  she  looked  out,  apparently  into 
space.  Then  she  saw  by  the  faint  moonlight  that 
the  train  was  standing  on  a  trestle  or  bridge,  and 
she  was  looking  over  a  wide  expanse  of  water. 

She  lay  down  again,  and  lulled  by  the  stillness, 
fell  asleep.  When  she  awoke  they  were  still  stand- 
ing on  the  bridge,  and  the  same  expanse  of  water 
lay  spread  out  before  them.  She  looked  at  her 
watch — it  was  half-past  twelve.  This  must  be  the 
railroad  bridge  over  the  Western  Branch.  She 
waited  a  while  longer  staring  idly  through  the  glass. 
Then  curiosity  got  the  better  of  her.  She  began  to 
dress. 

It  was  constant  traveling  in  a  sleeping-car  berth 
that  made  an  alert  man  believe  that  if  he  could  as- 
sume his  clothes  in  such  a  space,  he  could  allow 
himself  to  be  handcuffed  and  put  in  a  trunk,  and 
escape  from  the  same  without  assistance.  It  was  a 
very  simple  idea,  and  it  was  strange  no  one  had 
ever  thought  of  it  before,  but  the  man  made  a  for- 
tune from  it.  Margaret  felt  that  she  had  indeed  ac- 
complished a  feat  when  she  emerged  from  her  berth, 

126 


A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES 

fully  clad — that  is,  fully  clad  except  her  shoes.  The 
porter  had  them  somewhere  polishing  them. 

This  was  rather  unexpected.  She  hesitated  a  mo- 
ment. Her  first  thought  was  that  she  would  have 
to  return  to  her  couch,  as  she  did  not  care  to  walk 
about  in  a  public  conveyance  without  shoes.  But 
as  everything  was  fairly  dark  and  no  one  at  all 
seemed  to  be  stirring,  she  thought  she  might  safely 
run  the  chance  of  her  absence  of  foot-gear's  passing 
unnoticed. 

This  car  was  the  last  one  of  the  train,  and,  re- 
membering that  the  pillows  in  the  berths  were 
placed  toward  the  engine,  she  got  her  bearings  and 
proceeded  toward  the  rear.  Standing  on  the  plat- 
form in  the  ghostly  glow  of  the  green  marking 
lantern  stood  a  brakeman.  She  approached  him. 
He  looked  up  and  started  when  he  saw  her. 

"  I  didn't  hear  you  come,"  he  said. 

He  picked  up  the  lantern  that  stood  on  the  step. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  she  asked. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  "  I  suppose  you  might  as  well 
know.  The  bridge  is  down." 

"  Down  ?  "  she  repeated.     "  Whereabouts  ?  " 

He  swung  himself  from  the  car. 

"  Out  there  over  the  deep  water." 
127 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Then  we  are  here  for  all  night  ? "  she  asserted, 
in  the  tone  of  a  question. 

But  he  was  gone.  She  watched  his  lantern  bob- 
bing as  he  walked  back  over  the  trestle.  She 
walked  down  the  steps.  There  was  a  plentiful  sprin- 
kling of  lanterns  ahead,  but  no  apparent  activity. 
Presently  the  figure  of  a  man  approached  her,  walk- 
ing on  the  board  that  ran  along  the  ties  beside  the 
train.  She  retired  to  a  secluded  place  on  the  plat- 
form. He  stopped  as  he  reached  the  rear  of  the 
train,  and  laid  hold  of  the  handles. 

"  Mr.  Brakeman,"  he  observed,  peering  up  into 
the  semi-darkness,  "  that's  a  bad  mess  ahead." 

She  might  have  noticed  something  about  his 
voice  if  she  had  not  been  so  much  amused  by  his 
remark.  She  laughed. 

"  If  you  can  see  that  light  away  back  there,"  she 
observed,  demurely,  "  that  is  the  brakeman." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  He  hesitated  a 
moment,  embarrassed,  and  then  made  a  move  as  if 
to  go  forward  again.  But  she  needed  information. 

"  What  is  the  chance,"  she  asked,  "  of  our  getting 
through  to-night  ?  " 

"  None  at  all,  I  should  say,"  he  replied. 

"Is it  as  bad  as  that?" 

128 


A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES 

"  There  are  about  fifty  yards  of  bridge  out  there," 
he  informed  her,  "  sagging  like  a  clothes-line.  No 
train  could  run  on  it." 

"  Meanwhile,  what  is  to  happen  to  us  ?" 

"  We  are  free  to  do  as  we  please.  I  suppose,"  he 
added,  "  they  will  have  a  temporary  track  fixed  by 
noon  to-morrow — certainly  not  sooner,  from  the  look 
of  things." 

"  Noon  !  "  she  repeated. 

If  they  did  not  get  across  before  noon  she  would 
not  be  in  Bay  City  until  after  the  close  of  business 
the  next  day.  A  whole  day's  delay  would  be  seri- 
ous. She  tapped  the  floor  impatiently  with  her  foot 
— until  she  touched  a  cool  bolt-head,  and,  remember- 
ing it  was  unshod,  hastily  recalled  the  foot  to  the 
shelter  of  her  skirts. 

"  I  must  get  to  Bay  City,"  she  said. 

"  If  they  run  a  train  back  to  the  City,"  he  ob- 
served, "  you  could  take  a  boat  from  there.  If  we 
wait  here,  we  can  either  possess  our  souls  in  patience 
until  they  fix  the  bridge,  or  we  can  trust  to  luck  that 
some  one  will  come  along  and  row  us  over  in  the 
morning." 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  yourself  ?  "  she  asked 
after  a  time. 

129 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  have  a  wild  scheme." 

He  glanced  down  the  track  toward  the  stationary 
point  of  light  of  the  brakeman's  lantern.  She  looked 
at  him,  waiting,  and  wondered  idly  what  the  man 
looked  like.  There  was  about  his  movements  a 
suggestion  of  some  one  she  had  known. 

"  What  is  your  scheme  ?  "  she  asked. 

"I'm  thinking  of  walking  back  there  and  down 
the  bank.  I  think  I  know  where  to  find  a  motor 
boat  a  relative  of  mine  owns — uses  it  to  go  duck 
shooting.  Then  I  could  get  across  and  catch  that 
other  train." 

"  Come  on,  let's  do  it,"  was  what  she  did  not  say, 
But  she  wanted  to  say  it.  For  once  in  her  life  she 
wished  she  were  a  man. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  that  is  rather  a  hazy 
scheme,  since  I  have  never  found  this  boat  in  the 
dark." 

There  was  something  familiar  about  his  voice. 
What  if  she,  by  some  chance,  had  met  him  ? 
Wouldn't  it  be  proper  then  for  her  to  suggest  go- 
ing with  him  ?  She  must  get  to  Bay  City. 

If  she  could  only  see  his  face.  But  he  would  in- 
sist upon  standing  down  there.  She  felt  in  her 
purse,  took  out  something  that  felt  like  a  five-cent 

130 


A  LADY  WITHOUT  SHOES 

piece  and,  watching  her  chance,  let  it  fall  upon  the 
platform.  Immediately  he  mounted  the  steps. 

"  You've  dropped  something,"  he  informed  her. 

"  Have  I  ?  "  she  asked,  looking  him  firmly  in  the 
eyes. 

He  was  about  to  stoop  to  get  her  money.  He 
stopped.  There  was  a  short  silence  in  which  aston- 
ishment smothered  speech. 

"  Why,  Margaret ! "  he  exclaimed,  at  length. 

"  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  who  you  were  ?  " 

"  Why  didn't  you  ?  Come  on  in  where  it  is  light 
and  let's  talk  it  over." 

"  I — I  can't     I  haven't  my  shoes." 

He  laughed — a  deep,  boyish  laugh. 

"  I  know,"  he  said.  "  I  was  like  that.  But  I  dis- 
covered where  they  are  hid.  What  were  yours  like  ? 
I'll  get  them." 

She  caught  him  by  a  fold  of  his  sleeve. 

"Go  in  front  of  me,  David.  I'll  follow  you  and 
pick  them  out  myself." 


131 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  RIVER  NIGHT 

"  \7OU'RE  here  first>"  he  suggested.  "  Take  the 
JL  best  pair." 

She  slipped  her  feet  into  her  own  shoes,  and 
looked  at  the  others. 

"  I  think  I  have,"  she  said. 

They  stepped  back  into  the  narrow  aisle  that  ran 
along  by  the  windows. 

"  Now,  let's  go,"  she  suggested. 

"Where?" 

"  For  the  motor  boat.  I  have  to  be  in  Bay  City 
in  the  morning,  child." 

"  Have  you  much  luggage  ?  " 

"  Just  a  tiny  bag." 

"  That's  all  I  have,  too."  His  eyes  shone.  "  All 
right,"  he  exclaimed,  "  I'm  game." 

He  got  her  hand-bag  from  the  berth. 

"  I'll  take  it,"  she  insisted. 

"Pooh!  Don't  be  self-reliant,"  he  said.  "If  I 
carry  one  in  each  hand  it  balances." 

Between  the  north-bound  and  the  south-bound 
132 


THE  RIVER  NIGHT 

tracks  ran  a  board  about  twelve  inches  wide.  They 
stepped  down  from  the  car  upon  this  and  began  to 
walk  back  toward  the  brakeman.  It  was  not  a 
comfortable  thing  to  do.  They  could  look  down 
between  the  ties  and  see  the  water  shining  dimly 
thirty  feet  below  them.  Margaret  felt  all  the  time 
that  she  was  doing  a  very  perilous  and  difficult 
thing,  although  it  is  a  well-known  fact  that  it  is  no 
feat  of  skill  for  a  human  being  to  walk  on  a  plank 
one  foot  wide.  It  would  have  taken  great  care  for 
her  to  have  squeezed  herself  through  one  of  the 
spaces  between  the  ties  and  drop  down,  but  never- 
theless it  seemed  dangerous. 

The  brakeman  carried  on  a  short  conversation 
with  them  and  was  convinced  that  they  were  ab- 
solutely foolhardy.  But  he  had  no  interest  in  being 
at  Bay  City  in  the  morning.  They  passed  by  his 
comforting  light  and  into  the  darkness  beyond.  She 
got  so  tired  looking  at  her  feet  that  she  vowed  she 
would  never  look  at  them  again.  And  yet  she  did 
not  dare  to  look  anywhere  else. 

It  was  not  more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  yards, 
yet  it  seemed  like  a  mile.  She  was  immeasurably 
relieved  when  at  last  they  came  to  broken  stones  be- 
tween the  ties  instead  of  just  space.  They  walked 

133 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

but  a  little  way  on  this,  and  then  suddenly  turned 
aside  and  started  down  the  side  of  the  embankment. 
Her  companion  held  one  of  the  bags  in  his  left  hand 
and  the  other  under  his  arm,  so  as  to  leave  his  right 
hand  free  to  help  her.  The  quarter-full  moon,  dis- 
appearing in  the  west,  threw  a  little  light  on  their 
pathway — just  enough  to  enable  them  to  avoid  col- 
liding with  big  stones  and  telegraph  pole  guy-wires, 
but  not  enough  to  prevent  them  from  stumbling  over 
unexpected  irregularities  in  the  ground.  Sometimes 
they  would  sink  in  over  their  ankles  and  slide  in  the 
shifting  soil.  At  the  bottom  they  had  to  take  off 
their  shoes  and  get  "rid  of  ballast,"  as  David  put  it. 

They  continued  down  an  easier  slope  to  the  river 
bank.  There  they  found  a  pathway  and  walked 
silently  along  it,  the  man  leading  the  way  carrying 
the  bags,  she  following  after,  her  eyes  glued  to  the 
back  of  his  head.  They  took  the  whole  occasion 
seriously,  and  plodded  along  with  a  grim  determi- 
nation. 

"  How  does  this  kinsman  of  yours  happen  to  keep 
a  power  boat  in  this  fearful  location  ? "  she  de- 
manded at  length. 

"It  is  not  so  bad  in  the  daytime,"  he  replied, 
laughing.  "  Why,  this  kinsman  of  mine — who  is 

134 


THE  RIVER  NIGHT 

my  brother-in-law — keeps  the  boat  here  so  that  when 
he  wants  to  go  ducking,  he  can  come  up  the  night 
before,  sleep  in  a  house  up  there  on  the  hill  and  start 
off  before  sunrise  in  the  morning." 

"  It  sounds  extravagant  to  have  a  boat  just  for 
that." 

"  That's  the  sort  of  man  he  is.  Whatever  he  does, 
he  does  thoroughly.  He  makes  money  fast,  and 
spends  it  fast.  He  wouldn't  enjoy  shooting  ducks 
unless  he  had  his  own  boat  to  go  in.  John  treats 
himself  as  royalty  and  everything  surrounding  him 
has  to  be  absolutely  the  best." 

"  I  think  I  see  it  now,"  she  cried,  suddenly. 

They  walked  a  little  further  and  there  lay  a  power 
boat  anchored  to  a  buoy  out  in  the  river.  After 
some  search  they  discovered  a  rowboat  lying  on  the 
bank  back  from  the  water's  edge  chained  to  a  tree. 
He  took  two  careful  steps  forward  to  another  tree 
and,  striking  a  match,  found  the  key  cleverly  con- 
cealed in  the  crotch  of  it.  The  boat  was  freed  and 
launched.  He  helped  her  in,  and  getting  in  himself 
rowed  out  toward  the  launch.  As  she  looked  at  him 
in  the  dim  light  it  was  hard  to  realize  that  he  was 
David  Bruce.  He  seemed  still  only  like  the  man 
who  had  talked  to  her  on  the  car  platform. 

135 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Say  something,"  she  exclaimed.  "  I  can't  get 
you  placed  in  my  mind." 

"Well,"  he  said,  laughing,  "three  weeks  ago  I 
landed  on  this  side.  Ever  since  then  I  have  been 
staying  with  my  sister  and  her  husband  in  Bay  City. 
Is  that  the  kind  of  speech  you  wanted?" 

"  Yes,  thank  you,"  she  returned.  "  I  think  I  shall 
begin  to  recognize  you  in  a  little  while." 

He  pulled  alongside  of  the  power  boat,  rolled  back 
the  tarpaulin  that  covered  her  cockpit  and  held  the 
little  boat  close  to  the  gunwale  while  she  climbed 
aboard  the  larger  one.  Then  he  came  aboard  him- 
self, fastened  the  smaller  boat  astern,  and  lighted  an 
oil  lamp  in  the  little  cabin.  He  knelt  down  before 
the  engine. 

"  This  is  where  you  will  see  my  true  self  revealed," 
he  observed,  looking  at  the  mechanism  apprehen- 
sively. 

But  when  he  threw  on  the  switch  and  had  made 
several  attempts  at  the  fly-wheel,  it  at  length  turned 
all  the  way  over  and  the  engine  fell  into  a  reassuring 
chug-chug-chug. 

He  cast  off  from  the  buoy  and  threw  the  engine  in 
gear.  They  started  swiftly  forward,  the  little  tender 
astern  straining  at  its  line  and  skipping  over  the 

136 


THE  RIVER  NIGHT 

water,  the  exhaust  shooting  like  a  machine  gun  and 
a  broadening  wake  sweeping  off  to  each  side  behind 
them.  In  the  distance  they  could  see  the  lights  of 
the  train  still  lying  on  the  bridge.  In  the  sky  be- 
yond, the  moon  was  just  touching  the  tree-tops. 

"My  father  wrote  me,"  he  said,  presently,  "that 
you  were  earning  your  own  living  now — and  doing 
extremely  well  too,  he  said.  I  suppose  this  is  a 
business  trip  to  Bay  City." 

She  nodded.     He  thought  a  moment. 

"In  that  case,"  he  said,  "I  suggest  that  instead 
of  just  crossing  the  river,  we  run  all  the  way  to  Bay 
City.  It  is  only  thirty-five  miles.  And  you  can  get 
some  sleep  in  the  little  cabin  there.  You  will  need 
it  if  you  have  to  use  your  brain  in  the  morning." 

"  But  how  about  you  ?  "  she  objected. 

"  Oh,"  he  replied,  carelessly,  "  I  am  just  as  I  al- 
ways was.  I  do  not  need  sleep." 

"  You  never  seem  to  grow  up,"  she  said.  "  Is  it 
still  stained  glass  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Why,  no,"  he  replied,  "I  haven't  done  much 
with  the  stained  glass  lately.  I  went  to  Chartres  to 
study  the  glass  in  the  Cathedral  there,  but — well, 
there  happened  to  be  a  large  aeroplane  factory  at 
Chartres  and  I  got  interested  in  aeroplanes." 

137 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"And  now  you  are  going  to  build  an  aeroplane?" 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  ?  "  he  demanded,  stoutly. 

"  No  reason,  if  you  are  going  to  continue  to  build 
aeroplanes.  But  it  isn't  wholesome  to  start  things 
and  leave  them  half  done.  The  half-done  things  in 
the  world  don't  help  it  a  particle." 

"  I  know,"  he  replied,  "  but  I  have  to  get  started 
right." 

"  Yes,  but  hurry." 

He  laughed  good-naturedly. 

"And  now  go  into  the  cabin,"  he  said,  "and 
sleep." 

She  turned  obediently  and  went  into  the  cabin. 
Here  she  took  off  some  of  her  clothes,  and,  wrap- 
ping herself  in  a  blanket,  was  soon  asleep  on  the 
cushion  of  the  lockers  that  ran  along  the  side.  As 
for  David,  he  sat  by  the  wheel,  filled  with  a  keen 
enjoyment  of  the  rippling  water,  of  the  dark  sky 
with  its  thousands  of  stars  casting  their  dim  glow 
upon  the  night,  and  of  the  great  breadth  and  the 
great  mystery  of  the  world  about  him. 


138 


CHAPTER  XIII 
BAY  CITY 

MARGARET  slept  as  soundly  as  a  child. 
When  she  awoke  gray  daylight  was  peeping 
in  at  the  port-holes  of  the  cabin.  She  dressed  and 
went  out  into  the  cockpit  where  David  was  sitting. 
They  were  on  a  broad  stretch  of  water  broken  by 
little  tumbling  waves  which  splashed  against  the 
bows  of  the  boat.  Far  ahead,  touching  the  dark 
line  of  the  distant  shore,  hung  the  striped  blanket 
of  the  morning  sky,  gorgeous  in  gray  and  flaring 
crimson.  The  water  between  glowed  with  the  light, 
and  across  it,  skimming  its  surface  so  near  that  their 
wings  splashed  in  the  waves,  flew  the  white  gulls. 
To  starboard  lay  a  low  island  scarcely  peeping  over 
the  water's  edge,  from  whose  flat  breast  grew  fresh- 
budded  trees  that  waved  in  the  morning  breeze. 
Astern  was  the  awakening  city.  A  cloud  of  hazy 
smoke  hung  above  it,  and  the  buildings  shining  in  the 
level  rays  of  the  sun  stood  out  against  the  deep  sky 
beyond  like  a  model  of  a  city  against  a  dark  curtain. 

139 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Where  are  you  going?"  she  asked,  rubbing  her 
eyes. 

"  I  am  merely  cruising.  You  were  not  awake 
when  we  passed  the  city,  and  I  came  out  here  to 
look  at  some  property." 

"  What  do  you  mean  ?  " 

He  pointed  to  the  island  on  which  grew  the  trees. 

"  That  is  my  island,"  he  said.  "  I  found  it  had 
never  been  claimed  by  any  one,  so  I  went  to  the 
county  court-house,  paid  a  fee  of  about  ten  dollars, 
and  they  wrote  down  in  a  big  book  that  it  belonged 
to  me.  It  is  an  amphibious  island.  It  lives  above 
water  most  of  the  year,  but  when  the  river  rises  it  is 
completely  submerged." 

"What  is  the  object  of  this  ownership?"  she 
asked,  presently. 

"I  want  to  build  my  aeroplane  there.  You 
see,  I  am  working  on  a  new  scheme  for  a  machine 
which  will  rise  out  of  the  water — a  hydro-aeroplane, 
you  know."  He  threw  over  the  wheel  and  the  bow 
swung  round.  "  I  think  we  might  as  well  go  back 
now.  I  am  as  hungry  as  a  sea-gull,  aren't  you  ?  " 

"How  do  you  propose  to  dispose  of  me?"  she 
asked,  curiously. 

"  Take  you  to  my  sister." 
140 


BAY  CITY 

"  I  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  go,  after  this  perfectly 
appalling  adventure." 

But  having  gone  through  the  appalling  adventure, 
as  she  called  it,  there  was  in  her  a  sense  of  having 
stolen  for  a  moment  a  glimpse  behind  the  curtain  of 
another  world.  She  felt  this  vaguely — as  a  person 
would  who  was  not  altogether  conscious  that  be- 
neath her  calm,  cool  surface  dwelt  a  warm  living 
woman. 

Beyond  a  doubt  it  had  been  an  adventure — un- 
usual enough,  coming  in  her  level  desk-and-letter 
life,  to  remind  her  that  the  world  was  a  many-sided 
place  ;  and  to  point  out  to  her  that  she,  steady-go- 
ing business  woman  though  she  was,  was  not  at  all 
insensible  to  the  influence  of  sentiment  and  ro- 
mance. Sentiment  and  romance !  She  glanced 
whimsically  at  David,  and  wondered  what  he  would 
have  thought  had  he  guessed  he  had  been  the  in- 
nocent cause  of  putting  those  two  words  into  her 
mind. 

The  household  of  John  Sawyer,  David's  brother- 
in-law,  was  not  a  little  surprised,  nevertheless,  when 
it  came  down  to  breakfast,  to  find  Margaret  and 
David  sitting  in  the  hall.  Of  course  it  was  not  pos- 
sible to  lay  the  whole  story  before  them  with  one 

141 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

well-chosen  sentence,  but  the  two  mariners,  after 
some  few  minutes  of  disjointed  narrative,  managed 
to  assuage  the  Sawyer  curiosity  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  latter  were  able  to  think  of  asking  their 
guests  to  breakfast,  which,  after  all,  was  the  strategic 
point  of  the  interview. 

Margaret  had  never  met  John  Sawyer  before.  He 
was  a  tall  man  of  about  forty  with  a  black  mustache 
and  a  deep,  rotund  voice.  Elsie  Bruce  had  married 
him  when  Margaret  had  been  about  twelve  years 
old.  She  remembered  David's  coming  to  Mr.  Lacey's 
house  wearing  a  very  tight  new  suit  which  had  been 
made  expressly  for  the  wedding  and  explaining  in 
detail  about  the  quantity  of  ice-cream  he  had  been 
permitted  to  eat,  and  her  own  sorrow,  at  the  time, 
that  she  had  no  sister  to  get  married,  too. 

"  I  consider  this  a  very  romantic  episode,"  com- 
mented Mr.  Sawyer,  when  the  story,  with  all  its  de- 
tails, had  at  last  been  completed. 

Margaret  did  not  admit  that  the  same  thought 
had  passed  vaguely  through  her  mind. 

"  You  must  discourage  that  idea,"  she  said,  smil- 
ing. "  I  was  sent  below  to  sleep  the  moment  that  it 
ought  to  have  become  romantic." 

"  I  thought  if  she  was  to  attend  to  business  to- 
142 


BAY  CITY 

day,"  David  explained,  "  she  ought  to  have  her 
beauty  sleep." 

John  Sawyer  looked  at  her  with  interest. 

"  Are  you  one  of  these  business  women  ? "  he 
asked. 

"In  a  very  small  way.  I  have  come  down 
here,"  she  added,  at  length,  "  to  find  out  about  Felix 
Groh." 

"  Oh,  ho  1 "  he  cried. 

"  Well  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  I  said  nothing." 

"  You  said,  '  oh,  ho.'  " 

He  pulled  a  cigar  from  his  pocket  and  balanced 
it  in  his  hand. 

"  May  I  ask  what  firm  you — ah — represent  ?  " 

"  Bundy  and  Son." 

"  Bundy  and  Son  ! " 

He  said  nothing  for  a  moment.  Then  he  rose 
from  the  table. 

"  Let's  go  in  here  and  have  this  thing  out,"  he 
said,  after  breakfast.  "About  Bundy  and  Son — I 
am  informed  that  Groh  has  been — ordering  heavily 
from  your  firm.  We  have  just  awaked  to  this 
situation  ourselves,"  he  went  on.  "  Groh  owes  our 
firm  nearly  three  thousand  dollars.  To  a  firm  in 

143 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

New  York  it  is  four.  There  are  eight  creditors  in 
all" 

"  Our  amount  is  small — only  seven  hundred 
dollars,  as  you  doubtless  know.  But  he  ordered 
five  hundred  dollars'  worth  more,  and  we  hesitated 
about  filling  it." 

"You  saved  five  hundred  dollars  by  that,"  he 
asserted. 

"  Is  it  as  bad  as  that? "  she  demanded. 

"  It  may  be,"  he  said,  seriously.  "  Let  me  explain 
the  situation  to  you.  This  little  German,  Groh,  has 
a  large  store  in  which  he  sells  a  little  bit  of  every- 
thing. Until  about  a  year  ago  he  had  been  making 
a  fair  living.  But  he  got  interested  in  an  old  fellow 
who  claims  to  have  discovered  an  absolute  wood 
preservative,  something  that  will  make  wood  as 
enduring  as  concrete.  Of  course  that's  a  good 
discovery,  if  it's  true,  and  Groh  had  visions  of 
millions  of  dollars  from  the  invention.  So  he  rented 
a  great  big  barn  across  the  river  and  started  a 
factory." 

Mr.  Sawyer  stopped  to  knock  the  ash  off  his  cigar. 

"All  of  which  was  a  very  ambitious  and  a  very 
praiseworthy  thing  to  do,  except  that  he  did  not 

take  into  consideration  the  fact  that  he  had  to  make 

144 


BAY  CITY 

other  people  believe  what  he  believed  before  they 
would  buy  his  product.  He  did  not  realize  how 
much  money  it  would  require  for  advertising,  and 
he  did  not  realize  how  hard  the  proof  of  that  par- 
ticular kind  of  thing  would  be.  You  can  see,  of 
course,  when  you  try  to  sell  a  man  a  preparation  to 
make  wood  last  indefinitely,  his  first  question  is, 
'  How  can  you  prove  that  it  will  make  it  last  indef- 
initely ? '  " 

She  nodded. 

"  Well,  he  got  in  deeper  and  deeper,  spent  all  his 
money  and  was  face  to  face  with  the  necessity  of 
spending  more.  He  couldn't  borrow  it,  so  he  hit 
upon  the  scheme  of  pushing  his  credit.  He  bought 
just  as  much  as  the  dealers  would  let  him  have  and 
sold  it  at  a  low  price — sometimes  at  cost — in  order 
to  dispose  of  it  quickly.  All  that  money  went.  But, 
although  the  product  was  well  advertised,  he  had  no 
selling  organization  capable  of  selling  it.  If  his 
name  had  been  well  known,  he  might  have  made  a 

big  thing  of  it.  But  as  it  is "  Mr.  Sawyer 

made  a  gesture  with  his  hand. 

"  What  does  the  wave  of  your  hand  mean?"  Mar- 
garet asked.  "  Bankruptcy  ?  " 

"  Ordinarily  it  would.     But  Groh  hasn't  anything. 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

Most  of  his  creditors  were  in  town  yesterday,  and 
our  firm  suggested  an  informal  meeting  of  these  men 
to  discuss  the  situation.  Finally  we  decided  that 
rather  than  realize  a  little  money  by  bankruptcy  pro- 
ceedings, and  force  a  really  good  customer  out  of 
business,  it  would  be  better  to  let  him  off  with  the 
provision  that  he  give  up  this  wood  preservative 
venture.  Then  if  he  will  give  us  each  a  note  for 
what  he  owes  us  and  stick  tight  to  business,  he  can 
soon  be  on  his  feet  again." 

"  Will  he  agree  to  that  ? ' 

"  Personally,  I  hardly  think  he  will  without  some 
further  concession.  I  believe  he  will  insist  on  get- 
ting something  in  return  for  the  money  he  has  put 
in  the  business  over  the  river.  He  is  a  pig-headed 
little  man,  and  his  first  thought  will  be  that  we  are 
trying  to  deprive  him  of  his  rights  to  the  discovery 
and  make  all  the  money  ourselves." 

"  It  seems  a  shame,  doesn't  it,"  she  said,  presently, 
"  that  he  should  have  wasted  all  that  money  ?  " 

"  And  it  is  doubly  a  shame,"  he  agreed,  "  when 
you  consider  that  he  has  prepared  the  ground  for 
some  one,  if  there  were  only  some  one  to  step  in 
and  reap  the  profits — some  firm  with  an  estab- 
lished list  of  customers  who  could  take  advantage 

146 


BAY  CITY 

of  what  advertising  has  been  done  and  turn  it  into 
money." 

He  glanced  at  her  very  keenly. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  this  wood  preservative?  " 
she  asked,  presently. 

"They  have  some  tests  over  there,"  he  replied, 
"  that  have  convinced  a  good  many  people.  They 
take  a  log  of  wood  and  coat  one-third  of  it  with 
their  paint,  one-third  of  it  with  ordinary  paint  and 
leave  the  remaining  third  unpainted.  They  put  that 
log  of  wood  through  enough  soaking  in  water  and 
burying  underground  and  floating  in  swamps  and  so 
forth,  to  drive  a  log  of  wood  crazy.  I  saw  one  that 
had  been  buried  underground  for  a  year,  and  cer- 
tainly the  part  covered  with  the  preservative  looked 
as  good  as  new." 

He  arose  and  walked  up  and  down  the  room. 

"  Do  you  know  what  I  think  ?  "  he  said. 

"  No,"  she  replied,  smiling. 

"  I  think,"  he  exclaimed,  "  there  might  be  a  for- 
tune for  some  one  in  that  if  properly  managed.  And 
the  easiest  part  of  it  is,  it  wouldn't  cost  a  penny  to 
try  it  out.  Groh  could  be  bought  out  for  a  thousand 
dollars,  and  there  is  a  thousand  dollars'  worth  of  the 
stuff  to  be  sold.  There  is  the  factory  and  organiza- 

147 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

tion  in  complete  working  order  ready  to  make  more 
as  soon  as  you  need  it  It's  merely  a  chance  to  bet 
nothing  against  a  million  dollars." 

He  stopped  in  front  of  her. 

"  Would  Mr.  Bundy  consider  such  a  proposition  ?  " 
he  demanded. 

She  looked  at  him  absently. 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  said. 

What  she  was  really  thinking  was,  "  I  have  a 
thousand  dollars  of  my  own." 


148 


CHAPTER  XIV 

DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

"  \\ 7HERE'S  David  ?  "  asked  Mr.  Sawyer,  as  he 

V  V  took  up  his  hat  preparatory  to  leaving  for 
his  office. 

"  He  has  gone  to  bed  for  a  while,"  his  wife  re- 
turned. "  He  is  tired  out." 

"  Wake  him  up  about  ten  o'clock,  won't  you  ?  I 
want  him  to  take  Miss  York  to  see  the  paint  factory 
of  Groh's.  I'd  go  myself,  but  I'm  so  busy.  Since 
the  launch  is  here  that  will  be  the  very  best  way 
to  go." 

Mrs.  Sawyer  nodded.  He  kissed  her  and  disap- 
peared in  a  whirlwind  of  haste.  If  the  speed  with 
which  husbands  dash  away  from  their  firesides  in 
the  morning  could  be  maintained  all  day  long,  the 
average  of  prosperity  throughout  the  Union  would 
increase  by  leaps  and  bounds.  Mrs.  Sawyer  settled 
herself  comfortably  in  her  chair. 

"  My  husband  doesn't  approve  of  my  brother  at 
all,"  she  observed.  "  You  aren't  thinking  of  mar- 
rying David,  are  you  ?  "  she  asked,  abruptly. 

149 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Not  yet." 

"  1  thought  you  were  not.  I  can  talk  about  him 
freely  then." 

"  I  imagine  Mr.  Sawyer  disapproves  of  David's 
not  having  a  fixed  occupation." 

"  Yes.  We  all  do  that,  of  course.  But  John  lec- 
tures about  it,  and  David  argues  with  him  on  the  sub- 
ject. And  David's  arguments  make  John  furious." 

"  What  does  he  say  ?  " 

"  David  says  John  is  a  waster.  He  points  to  his 
automobile  and  his  motor  boat  and  his  cigars  and 
his  clothes,  and  he  proves  that  John  wastes  about 
twice  as  much  every  year  as  David  spends.  And 
that  is  true,  for  my  dear  husband  must  have  the  best 
of  everything.  David  says  his  own  income  is  suffi- 
cient for  his  own  needs.  He  insists  that  business 
prosperity  such  as  the  world  applauds  and  such  as 
John  possesses,  is  actuated  by  nothing  but  a  desire 
to  purchase  a  few  more  things  for  one's  self." 

"  And  that  spirit,"  Margaret  said,  thoughtfully, 
"  is  simply  the  result  of  his  extreme  aversion  to  com- 
mercialism.  But  some  day  it  is  going  to  be  neces- 
sary for  him  to  go  dollar-hunting.  And  then  I  be- 
lieve he  will  go  with  a  vim.  Don't  you  ?  " 

"  Yes.  But  he  needs  something  to  touch  a  match 
150 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

to  the  powder.  He  isn't  serious  at  all.  There  is  a 
nice  old  lady  in  this  town  who  is  anxious  to  have 
him  paint  her  portrait,  and  he  refuses.  He  says  he 
doesn't  like  her  looks.  And  it  would  mean  several 
hundred  dollars  to  him." 

"  I  can't  understand  that.  But  then,  of  course,  I'm 
working  in  an  atmosphere  where  it  is  considered 
criminal  to  fail  to  earn  a  dollar." 

"  And  yet,  here  is  another  thing.  David  is  just 
as  frugal  as  a  mouse.  He  lived  on  much  less  than 
his  income  abroad.  In  fact,  he  helped  to  support 
several  of  the  men  who  would  otherwise  have  been 
unable  to  stay  there  at  all." 

"  Of  course,"  Margaret  agreed,  "  there  are  many 
hopeful  things  about  him." 

"  I  think  David  is  a  sturdy  character,"  asserted  his 
sister.  "  He  has  the  courage  to  follow  his  own  in- 
clinations, no  matter  what  other  people  say — which 
is  a  quality  few  of  us  possess." 

David  came  down  a  little  after  ten  o'clock  looking 
just  as  fresh  as  if  he  had  had  a  full  night's  sleep. 
He  and  Margaret  went  off  together  to  take  their  trip 
to  the  factory  in  the  launch. 

"  I  feel  very  humble  indeed  beside  such  a  brilliant 
business  woman,"  he  said. 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Don't  ridicule  me,  David,"  she  replied.  "  That 
is  the  very  reason  why  you  have  a  supreme  con- 
tempt for  me." 

"  Whatever  supreme  feeling  I  have  for  you,"  he 
contradicted,  "  it  is  not  contempt." 

The  little  launch  chugged  across  the  river  carry- 
ing them  toward  the  big  stone  barn  which  was  Felix 
Groh's  factory.  They  landed ;  and  from  that  mo- 
ment Margaret  spoke  scarcely  a  word  to  him.  Her 
attention  was  riveted  upon  the  plant.  She  did  not 
even  observe  the  interest  with  which  all  her  actions 
were  noted. 

"What  do  you  see  now?"  he  demanded,  as  they 
approached  the  barn,  and  she  stopped  suddenly. 

"  I  was  looking  at  those  plants,"  she  said,  point- 
ing to  a  number  of  green  rows  under  careful  cultiva- 
tion. "  They  do  not  look  like  any  vegetables  I  know 
of.  What  do  you  think  they  are  ?  " 

"  That  is  one  of  the  things  I  don't  know,"  he  re- 
plied. 

A  middle-aged  man  met  them  at  the  door.  He 
said  his  name  was  Venn,  and  that  Mr.  Sawyer  had 
telephoned  that  she  was  coming.  He  had  white 
hair,  and  a  white  beard  and  mustache.  There  was 

a  dreamy,  far-away  look  in  his  eye,  and  she  picked 

152 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

him  for  the  man  who  had  discovered  the  wood  pre- 
servative even  before  he  told  her.  She  spent  a  very 
long  time  with  this  gentleman  going  over  the  es- 
tablishment, while  David,  weary,  famished,  bored, 
wandered  about  like  a  lost  soul  until  finally  he 
amused  himself  painting  an  impressionist  picture  of 
the  barn  on  the  back  of  a  shingle  with  some  of  the 
wood  preservative  he  had  found  in  a  half-empty  can. 

The  white-haired  gentleman  showed  Margaret 
samples  of  wood  that  led  her  to  believe  the  pre- 
servative had  many  properties  that  were  claimed  for 
it.  After  that  the  first  question  she  asked  him  was 
— how  much  did  it  cost  to  make  it?  As  she  ex- 
pected, he  replied  that  he  did  not  know.  So  they 
went  to  the  fragmentary  books  that  he  kept  in  the 
little  boxed-off  office  at  the  corner  of  the  building. 
Mr.  Sawyer  had  evidently  been  very  emphatic,  be- 
cause the  man  was  willing  and  anxious  to  show 
everything — except  that  he  let  fall  no  word  about 
the  process  by  which  his  precious  product  was 
made. 

With  infinite  labor  and  pains  they  got  the  cost  of 
all  the  materials  that  had  been  purchased  in  the  pre- 
ceding three  months,  the  amount  paid  for  all  labor 
and  the  amount  expended  for  repairs  on  the  build- 

153 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

ing  and  machinery.  She  found  out  from  him  how 
much  rent  Mr.  Groh  paid,  the  approximate  value  of 
the  machinery  and  how  long  it  might  be  expected 
to  last  before  it  had  to  be  renewed.  To  extract  this 
information  from  the  man  required  skilful  surgery, 
because  these  things  did  not  interest  him,  and  it  was 
hard  for  him  to  concentrate  his  mind  on  them  suffi- 
ciently to  remember.  Then  she  found  out  how  much 
of  the  product  had  been  manufactured  in  that  time. 
From  all  these  things  she  at  length  managed  to  find 
out  how  much  it  cost  to  make  the  product.  She  re- 
turned to  David  tired  out 

She  revived  sufficiently,  however,  to  ask  about 
the  rows  of  green  plants  that  had  aroused  her  curi- 
osity. 

"  What  vegetable  is  that  ?  "  she  demanded. 

"  Oh,"  Venn  replied,  with  a  spark  of  interest,  "  it 
is  a  weed  I  am  cultivating.  I  extract  a  kind  of  oil 
from  it  that  I  sell  to  the  county  wheelwrights.  They 
use  it  to  thin  out  their  paints — in  the  place  of  tur- 
pentine." 

"  In  the  place  of  turpentine ! " 

"  Yes.  It  seems  to  have  all  the  properties  of  tur- 
pentine, except  that  it  has  a  sweet  odor.  It  costs 
very  little  to  manufacture." 

154 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

"  That's  curious.  Can  you  let  me  have  a  little  of 
it?" 

"  Certainly." 

The  man  disappeared. 

"  How  did  you  stand  it  ? "  asked  David,  scratch- 
ing out  some  high  lights  in  his  sketch  with  a  pen- 
knife. 

"  I  am  a  wreck.  Can't  we  do  something  soothing 
to  the  nerves  right  away  ?  " 

"  Indeed  we  can.  As  soon  as  that  old  chap  brings 
back  your  medicine,  I  know  the  very  thing  to  do.*' 

The  man  returned  presently  with  a  small  bottle 
of  colorless  fluid,  which  he  presented  to  her.  She 
shook  hands  with  him  and  followed  David  to  the 
launch. 

A  fine  warm  sun  was  shining.  He  put  cushions 
on  the  seat  beside  the  steering-wheel  and  arranged 
others  so  that  she  could  lean  against  the  cabin.  And 
although  it  was  not  really  cold,  he  spread  a  blanket 
over  her  knees  and  tucked  it  in  about  her  feet  She 
shrugged  herself  luxuriously  into  its  folds. 

"  Now  I  feel  comfortable,"  she  said.  "  I  am  apt 
to  purr  at  any  moment." 

He  started  the  engine  and  steered  out  into  the 
deeper  water. 

155 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Want  to  know  where  we  are  going  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No.  I  don't  want  to  have  to  think  again  to- 
day." 

"  It  would  be  a  fine  opportunity  to  run  off  with 
you." 

"  I  don't  care,"  she  said,  lazily.  "  Do  anything 
you  please  with  me." 

They  ran  on  down  the  stream,  partly  carried  by 
the  current,  past  the  docks  and  cranes  of  the  ship- 
yards, past  the  freight  wharf  where  a  river  boat  lay, 
idly  spurting  steam,  while  an  army  of  ants  rolled 
barrels  and  boxes  up  her  gangplanks.  She  viewed 
these  things  contentedly,  as  matters  which  ran  on  of 
their  own  momentum,  without  her  having  to  lift  one 
of  the  hands  which  lay  warm  under  the  cover. 

"Are  you  going  to  cross  the  ocean  with  me?" 

"  Sailing  under  sealed  orders  now,"  he  replied. 
"  However,"  he  added,  "  you  may  rest  assured  that 
if  we  cross  the  ocean  I  shall  go  with  you." 

"  That  was  all  I  wanted  to  know,  of  course,"  she 
observed,  sighing  contentedly. 

They  passed  into  the  broad  water,  beyond  the 
cape  which  shielded  the  South  River.  The  current 
of  the  latter  brought  waves,  and  the  launch  began 

to  rise  and  fall  gently  as  she  cut  through  them. 

156 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

The  spray  that  broke  now  and  then  over  the  bows 
carried  back  the  smell  of  deep  waters  to  them.  She 
closed  her  eyes. 

"  I  have  not  the  slightest  intention  of  ever  leaving 
this  boat,"  she  asserted. 

When  they  got  well  out  into  the  larger  river,  he 
turned  down-stream. 

"  The  shore  behind  us  has  changed,"  she  informed 
him,  opening  her  eyes.  "  That  clump  of  trees  that 
was  over  there  is  now  over  here." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  exercise  complete  control  over  them," 
he  replied,  seriously.  "I  move  them  by  merely 
turning  this  wheel." 

She  closed  her  eyes  again. 

"  I  am  glad  to  be  in  such  good  hands,"  she  mur- 
mured. 

They  ran  along  in  easy  comfort  for  a  while.  Pres- 
ently he  went  below  and  shut  off  the  engine.  The 
launch  slid  along  of  its  own  momentum.  Margaret 
glanced  over  the  side  ;  and  there  appeared  suddenly 
a  strip  of  land  which  moved  by  them,  growing  wider 
and  wider.  It  was  covered  with  undergrowth,  and 
a  clump  of  large  trees  grew  in  the  middle  of  it.  As 
their  speed  diminished,  David  ran  forward  and 
caught  a  stout  stake  that  stuck  up  out  of  the  water. 

157 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

To  this  he  made  the  launch  fast  with  a  line.  It 
swung  around  until  the  stern  pointed  down-stream. 

"  Oh  ! "  she  exclaimed,  "this  is  your  island,  isn't 
it?" 

"Yes.     Would  you  like  to  go  ashore ?" 

"  I  am  at  your  disposal,  sir,"  she  replied. 

She  gazed  at  the  ten  or  fifteen  feet  of  water  that 
lay  between  the  boat  and  shore. 

"  What  do  we  do  about  that?"  she  asked,  with  a 
pleasant  show  of  interest.  "Wait  until  it  evapo- 
rates ?  " 

"  You  either  wade  ashore,"  he  said,  "  or  you  have 
some  one  carry  you." 

"  I  wouldn't  step  into  that  cold  water,"  she  ob- 
served, glancing  again  at  the  river,  "  for  a  month's 
pay." 

He  was  already  taking  off  his  shoes.  In  a  mo- 
ment he  stepped  overside. 

"  Come  on,"  he  directed. 

"  I  don't  want  to  move." 

"  You  needn't." 

He  came  aboard  and  lifted  her,  blanket  and  all, 
to  the  edge  of  the  deck.  Then,  stepping  into  the 
water  once  more,  he  swung  her  off  with  a  good 

strong  heave,  carried  her  not  only  to  the  shore,  but 

158 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

from  there  on   up   the   path   toward  the  clump  of 
trees. 

"  I'm  having  a  larger  journey  than  I  was  prom- 
ised, aren't  I  ?  " 

"  I  can't  put  you  down  now  until  I  find  a  place 
for  you." 

In  a  moment  she  found  herself  sitting  in  the  sun- 
shine with  her  back  against  a  tree,  the  blanket  still 
around  her. 

"It's  convenient  to  know  you  so  well,  David," 
she  observed,  smoothing  the  woolen  folds  over  her 
knees.  "  Otherwise  I  should  have  had  to  walk." 

"  And  yet  when  you  think  of  it,"  he  replied,  "  you 
have  seen  so  little  of  me  of  late  years  that  you  hardly 
do  know  me." 

"  Yes.  I  find  myself  getting  acquainted  with  you 
day  by  day.  But  what  I  meant,  of  course,  is,  it  has 
been  so  long  since  I  first  clapped  eyes  on  you  that  I 
can  safely  consider  you  " — she  smiled — "  in  the  harm- 
less brotherly  class." 

"Yes,"  he  said,  looking  at  her  with  a  queer  ex- 
pression. 

"  Mercy,  boy ! "  she  exclaimed,  presently,  "  put 
on  your  shoes  and  stockings.  It  makes  me  cold  to 
look  at  you." 

159 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

He  did  as  directed.     She  glanced  about  her. 

"  Do  you  see  my  house  ? "  he  asked.  "  It's  a 
portable  affair — meant  originally  for  a  garage,  I 
think.  I  had  it  put  here  after  the  water  went  down 
a  week  ago." 

The  tiny  house  sat  amidst  the  clump  of  trees.  It 
was  an  ungainly  sort  of  thing  of  the  same  general 
style  of  architecture  as  the  house  on  a  Noah's  ark. 

"  It  isn't  beautiful,"  she  observed. 

te  No,  but  it's  faithful.  It  does  what  is  required 
of  it." 

He  started  off  toward  the  house — and  then  came 
back  to  impart  a  bit  of  moralizing  that  occurred  to 
him. 

"  That's  the  way  with  us  human  beings,"  he  said. 
"  In  all  our  possessions  we  prefer  beauty  to  service- 
ableness — even  in  our  wives." 

"  You  have  wives  ?  "  she  interrupted. 

"  Only  in  the  far  future,"  he  explained.  "  But  I 
know  that  in  picking  out  a  wife  I  should  doubtless 
pick  out  a  beautiful  one — like  you,"  he  added,  after 
some  thought. 

She  thanked  him  profusely. 

He  completed  his  interrupted  journey  to  the  house 

and  returned  with  an  axe  with  which  he  chopped 

1 60 


HAVE   YOU    COME    TO    LIFE  '. 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

driftwood  from  a  pile  that  lay  close  by  the  house, 
and  bringing  an  armful,  started  a  fire  between  two 
big  stones  close  beside  her. 

"  I  think  this  promises  to  be  gorgeous,"  she  ex- 
claimed. "And  are  we  to  have  food?  Somehow  I 
am  hungry." 

"  Do  you  know  why  ?  "  he  said.  "  It  is  nearly 
five  o'clock  and  you  haven't  eaten  since  eight  this 
morning." 

She  raised  her  eyebrows.     "  It  isn't  really  so  late  ?  " 

He  assured  her  that  it  was. 

"  If  I  hadn't  agreed,"  she  said,  "  to  turn  all  the 
responsibility  of  this  expedition  over  to  you,  I  should 
be  worrying  about  what  your  sister  will  think  if  we 
aren't  home  in  time  for  dinner.  She  expects  us, 
doesn't  she  ?  " 

"  She  will  know  that  business — or  something — has 
detained  you.  And  they  never  expect  me  until  I 
appear." 

"  At  any  rate,"  she  asserted,  "  I  should  starve  be- 
fore I  got  there  if  we  left  now." 

He  started  again  toward  the  house. 

"  Let  me  go  too,"  she  exclaimed. 

"What!  Have  you  come  to  life?"  he  asked, 
laughing. 

161 


"The  prospect  of  food  accomplishes  wonders," 
she  explained. 

They  found  in  the  house  a  store  of  canned  things 
and  some  potatoes,  sugar,  olives,  coffee,  jam  and 
various  and  sundry  non-perishable  foods. 

"  I,  am  going  to  live  here,  beginning  next  week," 
he  said.  "  I  have  just  begun  to  stock  up." 

She  looked  intently  over  the  collection,  peering 
curiously  into  everything,  unwrapping  the  corners  of 
things  that  were  in  paper  and  generally  being  as  in- 
quisitive as  a  mouse.  She  came  away  bearing  a 
package  of  cheese. 

"  Am  I  going  to  be  allowed  to  make  something 
out  of  this  ?  "  she  inquired. 

"  If  you  are  sure  you  can  make  a  rabbit  over  a 
wood-fire." 

The  fire  had  burned  up  satisfactorily  and  they  had 
a  fine  bed  of  glowing  coals  under  the  blazing  wood. 
They  poked  the  potatoes  into  the  midst  of  these. 
The  coffee-pot  was  precariously  adjusted  in  a  sort  of 
canyon  between  two  stones,  where  the  flames  leaped 
up  and  beat  upon  its  tin  sides.  The  rabbit  pro- 
gressed nicely  and  was  given  a  place  of  honor  in  an 
aluminum  frying-pan  which  spanned  the  space  be- 
tween the  ledge  on  the  stone  and  an  iron  bar  run- 

162 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

ning  across  the  fire,  making  the  chance  almost  even 
as  to  whether  the  fire  or  they  were  to  have  the  first 
opportunity  of  consuming  its  contents. 

Dusk  fell  before  these  culinary  operations  were 
complete.  The  firelight  fell  red  upon  her  as  she 
bent  over  her  golden  food.  Darkness  came  closer 
and  made  a  house  about  them  as  big  in  diameter  as 
the  glow  of  the  fire.  Had  they  had  time  to  look 
above  them  they  could  have  seen  the  even  sky  dot 
slowly  with  faint  stars,  and  the  fat  white  crescent  of 
the  moon  become  a  shining  thing  instead  of  a  pale 
mark  in  the  sky. 

The  steaming  coffee-pot  blew  its  aroma  into  the 
air,  sputtering  and  bubbling  with  its  own  importance. 
The  rabbit  neared  a  state  of  completion,  and  was 
cleverly  withdrawn  from  its  dangerous  position  with- 
out catastrophe.  Potatoes,  blacker  than  coal  as  to 
outside  but  within  white  as  the  driven  snow,  were 
dug  out  of  the  depths  of  the  fire.  David  added  to 
the  delicacy  and  daintiness  of  the  meal  by  toasting 
frankfurter  sausages  upon  the  end  of  a  sharpened 
stick. 

They  sat  with  their  backs  to  the  tree  and  the 
pleasant  blaze  in  their  faces  and  drank  coffee  from 
tin  cups,  while  they  balanced  on  their  laps  each  a 

163 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

wooden  plate,  where  rested  a  crisply  blackened 
sausage,  a  snow  white  potato,  seasoned  with  a  sense 
of  out-of-doors,  which  is  the  life  of  a  potato  in- 
cinerated thus,  and  a  cracker  supporting  a  little 
mound  of  gold. 

And  after  they  had  fallen  upon  this  repast  with 
the  ardor  of  early  American  Indians,  there  remained 
presently  the  plates  and  the  tin  cups.  They  leaned 
back  against  the  trees  and,  sitting  thus  comfort- 
able and  warm,  they  surveyed  the  moon  and  the 
stars  and  the  streak  of  milky  way.  In  the  dis- 
tance shone  the  lights  of  the  city,  which  threw  their 
glow  upon  the  sky.  The  river  steamer  approaching 
let  forth  three  long  coughs  of  warning  from  her  siren 
whistle,  and  swung  around  in  the  channel,  her 
lighted  decks  reflected  in  the  water,  and  the  eye  of 
her  search-light  seeking  out  the  wharf  where  she  was 
to  dock.  Now  and  then  a  belated  sailboat  loafed 
homeward  before  the  leisurely  breeze,  her  gray  sails 
indistinct  against  the  night  and  her  skipper,  with  the 
light  from  the  binnacle  on  his  face,  sitting  with  an 
inanimate  immovability  at  the  wheel. 

"  This  is  the  world  I  like,"  he  said. 

"  It  almost  frightens  you,  doesn't  it,"  she  ex- 
claimed, "  with  its  immensity.  I  have  never  been  out 

164 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

like  this  before  at  night.  I  have  always  been 
chaperoned  by  electric  lights." 

He  crossed  his  legs  comfortably  and  put  his  hands 
behind  his  head. 

"  We  must  come  again — that  is,  if  I  can  ever  get 
you  in  this  relaxing  mood.  You  seem  to  be  keyed 
up  to  something,  usually." 

"  After  they  work  me  for  seven  hours,  I  am  al- 
ways in  a  relaxing  mood.  I  shall  be  as  clay  in  your 
hands." 

"  I  take  that  as  a  promise,"  he  replied. 

"  Oh,  I  am  always  willing  to  let  some  one  else  lay 
out  my  pleasures  for  me.  And  I  like  your  methods," 
she  added,  without  looking  at  him,  "  even  if  you  are 
a  friend  of  my  childhood." 

"  I  realize,  of  course,  that  I  am  as  a  prophet  in  his 
own  country,"  he  said. 

He  rose,  and  put  some  fresh  sticks  on  the  fire. 

"  Oh,"  he  said  suddenly,  "  shall  you  take  the  train 
home  to-night  ?  n 

"  No.  I  am  going  to  stay  down  to  a  meeting  of 
the  creditors  to-morrow.  But  I  must  send  some 
mail  on  the  train." 

"We'll  get  back  in  time  for  that.  We'll  just 
watch  these  logs  burn  out.  You  haven't  told  me," 

165 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

he  said,  "  what  you  thought  of  the  wood  preserva- 
tive." 

"  I  didn't  suppose  you  were  interested,"  she  re- 
plied, looking  at  him  in  surprise. 

"Why  not?" 

"  I  thought  you  hated  everything  connected  with 
business." 

"  No,  I  don't  know  that  I  do,"  he  said,  slowly. 

"Then  I  will  tell  you,"  she  began.  "This  pre- 
servative costs  too  much  to  manufacture." 

"Then  you  are  not  in  favor  of  purchasing  the 
factory." 

"  I  will  not  recommend  it,"  she  said,  smiling. 

"That  was  a  queer  character,"  he  observed,  pres- 
ently, "  who  did  the  honors  for  you  at  the  factory. 
He  had  a  nose  like  an  eagle." 

"  I  didn't  notice  his  nose." 

He  pulled  out  a  letter  from  his  pocket  and  finding 
a  blank  space  upon  it,  made  a  little  caricature  of  the 
white-bearded  man  at  the  factory.  It  was  a  likeness, 
and  it  caught  the  man's  peculiarities.  She  laughed, 
and  kept  it  in  her  hand  looking  at  it. 

"  David,"  she  exclaimed,  "  you  mustn't  give  up 
this  sort  of  thing.  I  think  you  have  the  spark  in 

you." 

1 66 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

"  I  haven't  given  it  up.  I  may  take  to  it  again 
yet." 

"  You  must  let  me  have  this,"  she  said. 

He  assented,  and  she  put  the  sketch  in  the  belt  of 
her  skirt. 

"  And  now,"  he  asserted,  "  the  logs  appear  to  have 
burned  out." 

They  carried  their  dishes  to  the  water's  edge,  and 
hastily  washed  them.  After  this  they  straightened 
the  things  in  the  little  house,  locked  the  door  and 
were  ready  to  depart. 

"  How  is  it  the  island  dried  off  so  quickly,"  she 
asked,  "  after  having  been  submerged  for  a  week?  " 

"  On  account  of  the  sandy  soil,  I  suppose.  It's  a 
great  convenience,  isn't  it  ?  " 

They  went  down  to  the  water's  edge,  and  there, 
either  because  she  felt  more  energetic  or  because  she 
had  developed  a  shyness  of  him,  she  refused  to  be 
carried,  and,  slipping  off  her  shoes  and  stockings, 
waded  into  the  water,  crying  out  and  laughing  at 
the  coldness  of  it  as  she  went  deeper  in,  but  keeping 
on  until  she  reached  the  launch  and  clambered  up 
the  little  ladder  to  the  deck. 

"  You  oughtn't  to  have  done  that,"  he  told  her. 

"  You  may  catch  cold.     I  could  have  carried  you." 

167 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  didn't  want  you  to  carry  me." 

He  started  the  engine. 

"  Go  into  the  cabin,"  he  directed,  brusquely,  "  and 
get  warm  by  the  machine,  and  be  sure  not  to  come 
out  again  until  you  are  warm." 

"  Yes,  sir,"  she  replied,  and  disappeared  meekly 
within. 

He  ran  straight  for  the  city.  She  came  out  pres- 
ently. 

"  Now  I'm  warm.  Feel  my  hand.  That's  the  way 
they  tell  whether  children  are  warm." 

"  It  feels  warm,  certainly." 

"  Then  I  suppose  you  will  allow  me  to  stay  on 
deck." 

She  leaned  on  the  cabin  and  gazed  ahead  of  her 
at  the  city. 

"  I  suppose  it  helps  you  to  steer  to  have  me  right 
in  your  way." 

"  I  can  see  well  enough.  I  like  to  look  at  you, 
anyway." 

"  I'll  come  closer  then." 

She  sat  down  beside  the  wheel  and  watched  him 
in  silence  as  he  made  the  landing.  A  man  came 
out  and  made  the  launch  fast.  David  arose  and 

helped  her  ashore. 

1 68 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

"  Now  it's  all  over,"  she  said. 

"  All  over." 

They  were  walking  down  the  wharf. 

"  Oh,  my  bottle,"  she  cried,  and  went  back  to 
rescue  her  sample  of  imitation  turpentine. 

"  I  want  to  go  to  the  post-office  and  write  letters," 
she  said. 

She  stopped  at  a  little  stationery  store  and  bought 
a  round  box  to  fit  her  bottle.  At  the  post-office  she 
put  the  bottle  in  the  box  and  addressed  it  to  Evans, 
in  the  hope  that  he  would  get  it  at  his  home  before 
he  left  for  the  office.  Then  she  wrote  him  a  letter 
and  asked  him  to  stay  away  from  his  office  if  neces- 
sary and  find  out  how  near  the  sample  came  to 
having  all  the  properties  of  turpentine,  and  to  let 
her  know  by  telegraph  at  Mr.  Sawyer's  office  what 
his  conclusions  were.  She  explained  where  she 
had  found  it  and  what  it  had  been  made  from. 
Finally  she  wrote  a  note  to  Mr.  Bundy  saying  she 
would  be  a  day  late  in  returning.  She  put  special 
delivery  stamps  on  the  parcel  and  the  letters  and 
made  sure  that  they  would  go  off  on  the  night 
train. 

"  Now  we  must  hurry  home  and  make  our  peace 

with  the  Sawyers,"  she  said. 

169 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

They  boarded  a  street-car  and  made  haste  for  the 
first  time  since  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  They 
found  both  the  Sawyers  in  the  living-room  of  the 
house. 

"  Here  they  are,"  exclaimed  Elsie.  "  I  said  that 
since  you  were  with  David,  we  might  expect  you 
when  we  saw  you.  John  was  for  ordering  out  the 
fire  department." 

"We  spent  a  long  day  across  the  river,"  David 
explained. 

"  But  Venn  said  you  left  there  before  three 
o'clock,"  Mr.  Sawyer  asserted. 

"  Well,  Margaret  had  to  recuperate,  and  there 
were  letters  to  be  written." 

Mr.  Sawyer  looked  at  her  with  interest. 

"  I  hope  they  were  letters  urging  Bundy  and  Son 
to  buy  the  factory." 

"  I  am  afraid  not." 

"  Oh,  well,"  he  asserted,  confidently,  "  we'll  con- 
vince you  to-morrow." 

It  was  past  eleven  when  they  showed  Margaret  to 
her  room.  David,  who  observed  no  regular  bed 
hour,  stayed  down-stairs  to  read.  He  looked  up 
from  his  book  presently  and  was  surprised  to  find 

her  standing  before  him. 

170 


DUSK  AND  STARLIGHT 

"  You  have  my  pocketbook  in  your  pocket,  which 
has  the  key  to  my  bag  in  it,"  she  said. 

He  gave  it  to  her.     She  held  out  her  hand. 

"  Good-night,"  she  said,  in  a  low  tone. 

He  took — not  the  one  hand — but  both,  in  both  of 
his. 

"  Good-night,"  he  said,  his  eyes  upon  hers. 

She  met  his  glance  smiling.  Then  she  gently 
withdrew  her  hands.  A  great  warm  tide  surged  up 
in  her  heart,  and  the  blood  ran  fast  in  her  veins. 
She  dropped  her  eyes  in  confusion  and  stood  for  a 
moment  wondering  that  the  calm  lady  of  Severn 
Street  should  be  so  stirred  at  the  touch  of  a  man's 
hands. 


171 


CHAPTER  XV 

DAVID— AND  No  GOLIATH 

AS  Margaret  lay  still  in  her  room  looking  at  the 
moonlight  coming  in  through  the  windows,  it 
occurred  to  her  that  this  had  been  an  unusual  day — 
a  day  in  which  she  had  given  up — at  least  in  part 
— to  play  instead  of  work.  She  had  seldom  given 
herself  up  so  wholly  to  relaxation.  As  a  child  she 
had  not  understood  the  meaning  of  real  play.  Her 
recreation  had  been  in  grown-up  occupations. 
Shelling  peas  for  her  had  been  a  diversion,  and  the 
privilege  of  setting  the  table  a  great  excitement. 
Her  childhood  had  been  one  of  responsibility,  which 
is  to  say  that  she  had  never  had  a  childhood.  The 
care-free  days  had  not  existed  for  her. 

It  came  almost  as  a  revelation  to  her  that  there 
was  another  side  of  her  nature.  She  had  grown  to 
look  on  herself  as  a  person  whose  work  was  to  sit 
at  a  desk  and  take  responsibility,  and  whose  recrea- 
tion was  in  seeing  the  fruits  of  her  work.  Her 

vocation  was  all-sufficient  for  her.     It  infused  in  her 

172 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

the  same  enthusiasm  that  a  painter  or  a  sculptor 
would  have  had  in  his  work.  And  she  was  an 
artist,  in  that  she  strove  toward  an  ideal.  The  re- 
sults of  her  work  were  the  things  of  her  heart  and 
hand ;  and  she  was  willing  and  eager  to  believe 
that  this  was  her  life. 

She  was  beginning  to  realize  vaguely  that  there 
was  embedded  somewhere  deeper  in  her  another 
force — a  force  that  could  induce  in  her  an  entirely 
new  interest — which  had  nothing  at  all  to  do  with 
work  and  ambition.  She  could  not  have  explained 
what  the  force  was  nor  what  it  meant,  but  it  seemed 
to  her  like  a  high  explosive,  lying  quiet  beneath  the 
surface  and  awaiting  only  an  unknown  contact  to 
make  it  an  active,  an  irresistible  power. 

She  expressed  something  of  this  to  Elsie  Sawyer 
in  the  morning  as  she  sat  in  the  nursery  and  watched 
the  latter  dressing  her  youngest  child.  The  older 
child,  a  bright  cheeked  boy  with  flaxen  hair,  came 
into  the  room,  and  his  mother  put  him  into  the  crib 
and  covered  him  completely  with  the  covers.  As 
soon  as  he  poked  his  head,  turtle-wise,  out  of  the 
enveloping  mass  of  blankets,  she  covered  him  up 
again.  This  simple  game  was  received  with  shrieks 
of  approval. 

173 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Now  no  one  ever  did  that  to  me  when  I  was  a 
child,"  Margaret  said,  when  the  boy  had  been  sent 
down  to  his  breakfast. 

"  Children  miss  a  great  deal,"  the  other  replied, 
"by  not  having  some  one  to  understand  them. 
There  is  nothing  more  pathetic,  really,  than  a  child. 
It  has  ambitions  just  as  grown-ups  have ;  and  has  a 
reason  for  everything  it  wants  to  do.  But  they  are 
held  down  by  rigid  rule.  Some  one  else  says  what 
they  shall  and  shall  not  do.  And  the  spirit  of  the 
child  is  spoiled  just  as  the  person  who  dictates  that 
rule  tempers  it  or  does  not  temper  it  with  affection. 
Affection  and  companionship  are  what  they  need." 

"  That  is  what  I  should  have  had,"  said  Margaret. 
"  If  it  is  ever  my  portion  to  have  children,"  she  went 
on,  "  I  trust  that  Providence  will  never  let  me  forget 
to  give  them  all  that  I  did  not  have." 

Elsie  industriously  brushed  the  infant's  hair. 

"  If  you  hold  to  those  sentiments,"  she  said,  at 
length,  "  it  means  that  when  you  marry  you  will 
have  to  give  up  your  business,  doesn't  it?" 

"I  suppose  so." 

"  Wouldn't  that  be  a  great  sacrifice  ?  lohn  made 
inquiries  about  you  yesterday,  and  found  out  if  it 
hadn't  been  for  you  Bundy  and  Son  would  have 

174 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

come  very  near  to  going  to  pieces.     In  fact,  he  said, 
'  she  is  Bundy  and  Son.'  " 

Margaret  flushed  with  pleasure. 

"  Wouldn't  it  be  a  great  sacrifice  ?  "  persisted  the 
other. 

"  Why,  no.  That  is,  I  can't  conceive  myself  giv- 
ing up  my  work  unless  something  else  had  got 
under  my  skin  and  made  me  want  to  do  that  more." 

The  child,  its  hair  finally  arranged  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  mother,  came  shyly  over  to  Margaret 
and  slipped  a  tiny  smooth  hand  into  hers  as  it  lay 
in  her  lap.  The  baby  hand,  half  as  large  as  it 
would  be  one  day,  but  perfectly  formed  as  if  it  might 
have  been  a  small-scale  model  for  the  real  full-grown 
thing,  was  warm  and  soft — soft  with  a  certain  living 
gentleness.  The  spirit  and  soul  of  the  baby  seemed 
to  be  in  the  touch  of  her  fingers.  A  thrill  of  pleas- 
ure ran  through  Margaret.  She  bent  over  and  held 
her  lips  to  the  tiny  square  inch  of  palm  in  the  tiny 
hand.  The  physical  touch  of  it  was  like  wine  to  her 
soul.  She  drew  the  child  to  her,  and  looked  up  at 
Elsie  flushed  and  embarrassed  by  an  unexpected 
shyness. 

"  Treasures  in  Heaven,"  she  said.  "  And  I  have 
been  laying  them  up  on  earth." 

175 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

She  rose  and  went  down-stairs  with  the  child, 
pausing  to  let  both  tiny  feet  rest  on  each  step. 
Some  one  was  playing  the  piano. 

"  Hark  1     Uncle  David  make  moosic." 

Margaret  looked  through  the  banisters  into  the 
library  beyond.  David  was  sitting  before  the  piano, 
oblivious  to  everything  about  him.  She  stopped  to 
listen.  She  knew  that  he  played  by  ear  alone,  and 
that  his  power  to  conjure  melody  out  of  the  keys 
was  due  to  a  mere  surprising  proficiency  with  his 
fingers,  and  a  mere  natural  musical  voice  within 
him.  It  was  not  the  melody,  however,  that  caused 
her  to  stop,  nor  any  power  of  hers  to  know  and  to 
appraise  the  music  that  floated  out  to  her.  It  was 
the  feeling  that  there  was  a  current  carrying  through 
it  down  to  David  himself.  It  was  his  own  voice  and 
in  it  she  saw  the  warmth  and  color  of  his  own  spirit. 

As,  led  by  the  halting  steps  beside  her,  she  slowly 
descended  the  stair,  she  was  thinking  that  David 
must  always  be  expressing  that  spirit — no  matter 
what  the  medium.  In  fact,  he  was  always  ready  to 
take  up  any  new  means  of  expression,  smothering 
progress  by  reason  of  his  very  proficiency  in  obtain- 
ing a  quick  working  knowledge  of  each  new  trick 

and  craft.     As  a  boy  he  had  always  been  under  the 

176 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

spell  of  some  transient  enthusiasm ;  sometimes  for 
carving  grotesque  manikins  out  of  sticks  of  chalk ; 
sometimes  for  writing  verse,  preferably  triolets  and 
rondeaus,  whose  form  was  pleasantly  intricate ; 
sometimes  for  making  models  of  houses  out  of  card- 
board— she  remembered  still  the  gardens  around 
them  with  paths  made  of  strips  of  sandpaper  and 
trees  made  of  sponges  dipped  in  green  water-color, 
and  set  upon  wooden  sticks  for  trunks ;  sometimes 
for  drawing  likenesses  of  people,  in  the  throes  of 
which  obsession  he  would  return  home  from  school 
in  the  afternoon  and  draw  pictures  of  the  new  faces 
he  had  seen  during  the  day. 

But  although  few  of  these  enthusiasms  lasted 
long,  yet  she  had  come  to  see  that  there  was  less 
fickleness  in  David  Bruce  than  he  was  charged  with. 
He  had  the  unaccredited  constancy  of  a  butterfly  flit- 
ting from  flower  to  flower — apparently  aimless,  but 
gathering  constantly.  Some  men  who  knew  him — 
the  square-jawed  and  hard-eyed  men  who  hunted  the 
dollar  to  its  last  hiding  place,  viewed  him  with  a 
smiling  and  half-contemptuous  tolerance,  because  he 
did  not  follow,  nose  down,  the  trail  of  the  hundred 
pennies.  They  felt  that  they  were  broad-minded, 

and   felt  so,   strangely  enough,   because  they  had 

177 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

narrowed  their  vision  down  to  one  thing.  Blazoned 
on  their  'scutcheon  was  the  word  "  Accumulation," 
and  that  was  their  standard  of  success.  But  to 
David  the  piling  up  of  money  fulfilled  no  ambition. 
He  had  seen  his  square-jawed  friends  warping  the 
once  straight  timbers  of  their  souls — sometimes  ever 
so  slightly,  sometimes  across  great  spaces — to  meet 
the  irregular  requirements  of  their  business.  But 
he  had  the  idea  that  he  was  put  in  the  world  to 
accomplish  some  particular  thing — something  he 
would  be  paid  for,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  provide 
for  his  sustenance — but  it  was  the  accomplishment, 
and  not  the  pay,  that  was  the  paramount  thing. 
And  he  was  hunting  for  the  thing  he  was  to  accom- 
plish— the  right  thing.  The  fickle  part  about  him 
was  that  it  took  him  a  long  while  to  find  it.  The 
steadfast  part  was  that  he  persisted  in  hunting. 

The  youthful  feet  of  the  child  piloted  Margaret 
into  the  dining-room.  John  Sawyer  greeted  her. 

"  I  want  you  to  promise  not  to  leave  the  house 
with  this  irresponsible  David,"  he  said.  "  You  must 
be  at  the  meeting  at  one  o'clock." 

"  No  danger,"  said  Elsie,  by  way  of  reassuring 
her  husband.  "  David  has  condescended  to  make 

an  appointment  with  Mrs.  Harris  at  ten  o'clock." 

178 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

"She  ambushed  me  on  the  street,"  David  said, 
strolling  into  the  room,  "and  I  told  her  that  ten 
o'clock  to-day  would  suit  me  as  well  as  any  time — 
and  I  suppose  that's  true,"  he  added. 

"  I  hope  you  intend  to  keep  the  appointment," 
his  sister  observed,  seriously. 

"  Now  that  she  has  succeeded  in  getting  the  child- 
labor  bill  through  the  legislature,"  he  returned, 
"she  wants  her  portrait  painted  with  a  copy  of  the 
act  in  her  hand  and  the  State  Capitol  in  the  back- 
ground." 

"  I  don't  see  why  you  are  so  superior  about  it," 
Sawyer  exclaimed.  "  You  are  being  paid  for  it.  I 
would  paint  her  with  one  foot  on  the  moon  and  the 
other  on  the  aurora  borealis  if  she  wanted  it.  I  can't 
understand  your  point  of  view." 

"We  all  realize  that,  John,"  observed  David, 
whacking  his  egg. 

After  breakfast  Margaret  announced  that  she  was 
going  to  the  post-office.  She  had  asked  Mr.  Bundy 
to  write  to  her  if  necessary,  in  care  of  general  de- 
livery. 

"  I  will  go  with  you,"  said  David,  "  if  I  may." 

"You   must  not  forget  your  appointment   with 

Mrs.  Harris,"  observed  his  sister. 

179 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  shall  certainly  bear  it  in  mind.  Such  impend- 
ing calamities  are  not  easily  forgotten." 

They  descended  the  steps  to  the  street.  David 
glanced  about  him. 

"  Can  you  run  ?  "  he  demanded,  suddenly. 

She  turned  to  him  in  surprise. 

"  Why  ?  "  she  was  about  to  ask.  But  the  street 
was  deserted  except  for  a  closed  automobile  in 
the  distance.  She  laughed  and  said  instead 
"  Yes." 

"  Come  on,  then." 

They  dashed  down  the  sidewalk.  He  turned  sud- 
denly at  the  first  intersecting  street. 

"  Let's  hide  here,"  he  said. 

"  David,  are  you  insane  ?  " 

He  did  not  reply,  but  peered  cautiously  around 
the  corner. 

"  Now  you  look,"  he  suggested,  at  length,  relin- 
quishing his  place  of  vantage. 

She  did  not  understand,  but  she  looked.  The 
street  was  still  empty  except  for  the  automobile  she 
had  seen  in  the  distance.  It  had  stopped  before  the 
Sawyer  house,  and  a  large  round  lady  had  alighted 
and  was  ascending  the  front  steps. 

"  It's  Mrs.  Harris,"  he  explained,  gleefully.     "  The 

1 80 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

mountain — if  it  isn't  disrespectful  to  refer  to  her  as 
that — has  come  to  Mohammed." 

"  David,  you  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself," 
she  said,  severely.  Nevertheless,  she  laughed. 

"Aren't  you  going  back?"  she  asked. 

"  No." 

She  looked  at  him  for  a  moment.  Then  she 
shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  they  walked  on. 

It  was  a  dull  morning.  There  was  the  chill  of  rain 
in  the  air,  and  the  sky  hung  low  and  leaden.  The 
cool  wind,  fresh  with  its  breath  of  ozone,  wore  about 
the  street  corners  with  a  moan  as  of  ocean  waves. 

"  This  is  a  beautiful  day,"  he  asserted. 

"Serious?" 

"  Quite  serious." 

"  I  thought  it  was  just  a  trifle  damp  and  dismal," 
she  confessed. 

"When  you  have  finished  general-delivering, 
come  down  to  the  water-front  and  I  will  show  you 
what  I  mean." 

There  was  no  mail  for  her. 

"  I  am  ready  to  be  shown,"  she  said. 

They  walked  to  the  river-front.  By  the  steam- 
boat wharf  lay  the  trim  bay  steamer,  her  black- 
banded  yellow  stack  showing  from  afar  off.  Deck 

181 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

hands  were  washing  her  down  with  a  hose.  This 
was  the  boat  that  ran  to  Baltimore  and  was  the 
pride  of  Bay  City,  as  it  was  a  concrete  testimonial 
to  the  rise  in  importance  of  the  little  metropolis. 

From  the  end  of  the  next  pier  they  could  see 
across  the  broad  waters  of  the  two  rivers — a  gray 
expanse  of  tossing  waves  breaking  into  whitecaps 
here  and  there  as  far  as  they  could  see.  Through 
the  gathering  mist  they  could  just  distinguish  the 
dark  line  of  the  far  shore.  Indistinctly,  as  upon  a 
partly  developed  photograph  plate,  stood  the  distant 
trees  of  David's  island,  seeming  to  grow  out  of  the 
water  itself.  Far  out,  moving  steadily  along,  a  tug, 
all  gray  through  the  mist,  stirred  up  at  her  forefoot 
a  scud  of  foam  and  from  her  funnels  smutted  the  sky 
with  a  line  of  black  smoke. 

A  fine  rain  began  to  fall.  It  felt  pleasant  upon 
their  faces.  She  knew  that  it  was  not  beneficial  for 
a  certain  color  in  her  hat,  but  she  did  not  suggest 
leaving.  Immediately  opposite  them  two  men  were 
pulling  on  the  halyards  of  the  mainsail  of  a  dingy 
sloop.  The  ungainly  canvas  rose  slowly  to  the 
shrill  accompaniment  of  the  pulley  aloft  until  it  was 
taut  at  the  mast  side  and  the  gaff  hung  down  like  a 

bird's  broken  wing,  but  a  few  heaves  at  the  peak  of 

182 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

it  brought  the  sail  up  smooth  and  tight,  a  puff  of 
wind  caught  it  and  bellied  it  out,  the  anchor  came 
up  to  the  creaking  of  the  windlass  and  the  boat  be- 
gan to  move  smoothly  through  the  water. 

"  I  should  like  to  be  aboard  it,"  she  said. 

"  So  should  I — although  she  is  probably  fragrant  of 
fish.  But  our  own  launch  is  good  enough,  isn't  it  ?  " 

She  looked  at  him  with  interest. 

"  I'm  willing,"  she  said,  at  length. 

They  turned  back  and  walked  shoreward  in  the 
increasing  rain.  Their  launch  rocked  at  its  mooring 
by  the  slip. 

They  put  on  oilskins  that  were  in  the  lockers  in  the 
cabin.  She  looked  like  an  emblem  of  the  sea  in  the 
yellow  slicker  that  enveloped  her  down  to  her  feet, 
and  the  yellow  sou'wester  tied  under  her  chin.  He 
showed  her  how  to  start  the  engine.  Following  his 
directions  she  grasped  the  wheel  and  brought  it  up 
as  hard  as  she  could  against  the  pressure.  It  turned 
all  the  way  over,  the  staccato  explosions  of  the  en- 
gine echoed  against  the  wharves,  and  the  launch 
went  put-put-put-put  out  into  the  rain. 

All  around  now  was  a  wall  of  gentle,  drizzling 
rain.  The  wharves  and  the  boats  moored  beside 

183 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

them  were  dim  and  indistinct.  The  water  was 
stippled  with  rain.  The  further  shore  was  lost  be- 
hind the  mist. 

They  were  cold  with  the  water  that  drove  into 
their  faces  as  they  plunged  ahead.  Water  ran  off 
the  little  rubber  epaulettes  on  their  shoulders. 
Everything  they  touched  was  comfortably  damp. 
Water  dripped  from  the  roof  of  the  cabin  and 
splashed  into  the  river.  She  looked  up  at  him,  her 
eyes  bright  with  excitement. 

"I  have  been  watching  you  steer  so  long,"  she 
said,  "  I  think  I  should  like  to  try  it  myself." 

He  relinquished  the  wheel  to  her.  It  gave  her  a 
fine  sense  of  power  to  turn  the  spokes  and  make  the 
bow  swing  round  as  she  wished.  She  steered 
out  into  the  open  and  left  the  wharves  but  a  mere 
shadow  astern.  They  ran  on  through  the  rain. 
What  there  was  of  sky  or  heavens  appeared  to  be 
but  a  few  feet  above  their  heads.  The  water  was 
visible  for  a  hundred  yards  or  more  and  then 
merged  into  the  rain.  They  were  running  ahead 
carrying  their  sky  and  horizon  with  them. 

Suddenly  a  shadow  dead  ahead  came  into  focus, 
and  a  tugboat,  looking  impossibly  large  and  hur- 
rying through  the  water  so  that  she  seemed  to  be 

184 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

pushing  a  great  wave  before  her,  bore  down  upon 
them.     Her  whistle  blew  twice. 

"  Pass  her  on  this  side,"  said  David. 

He  did  not  reach  a  hand  out  to  touch  the  wheel. 
She  threw  the  spokes  over.  They  passed  the  tug 
close  by — so  close  that  they  could  read  the  name  on 
the  pilot  house  and  hear  the  roar  of  her  engines. 
Then  the  huge  wake  caught  them  and  the  little  launch 
pranced  on  the  rollers  like  a  mettlesome  horse. 

"  Aren't  you  proud  of  me  ?  "  she  asked,  smiling. 

"  Immeasurably,"  he  replied,  seriously. 

She  shot  a  glance  at  him  and  laughed. 

"Shall  we  turn  about  now  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Why?" 

"  Haven't  you  an  appointment  ?  " 

"  I  believe  I  will  not  keep  it." 

She  gazed  into  the  binnacle,  where  she  was  try- 
ing to  keep  the  compass  needle  due  west — not  an 
easy  task  if  one  is  not  accustomed  to  it. 

"  David,"  she  observed,  "  what  you  need  is  a 
Goliath — something  big  to  aim  at.  I  wish  you 
would  hurry  and  get  it." 

"  I  can't  paint  her,"  he  said,  "  so  what  is  the  use 
of  seeing  her  ?  Besides,  I  can  see  her  any  time  at 
all,  if  I  want  to,  but  you  I  can  see  only  now." 

185 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"You  can  see  me  at  any  time,"  she  told  him. 

"  But  you  will  be  a  long  way  off,," 

"  You  seem  to  have  managed  to  live  for  several 
years  a  long  way  off  from  me — without  inconve- 
nience," she  said. 

They  passed  close  by  the  lighthouse,  rising  out 
of  the  water  on  its  iron  stilts. 

"  If  we  kept  right  on  our  course,"  he  said,  looking 
at  the  compass,  "  we  should  bump  into  the  island. 
It  is  almost  due  east  of  the  lighthouse." 

"  I  wonder  if  I  could  hit  it,"  she  asked,  "  steering 
by  compass  ?  " 

"  Go  ahead,"  he  said.  "  Keep  a  little  to  the  south, 
on  account  of  the  current" 

The  lighthouse  faded  into  the  rain  behind  them. 
It  was  as  if  some  one  had  placed  an  opaque  globe 
over  them  which  moved  along  as  they  moved.  They 
were  playing  a  miniature  game  of  sailing  from  one 
continent  to  another  with  a  miniature  horizon  strung 
close  around  them,  with  land  close  by,  but  not  within 
sight  as  far  as  the  eye  could  see. 

She  leaned  forward  and  wiped  the  rain  off  the 
glass  of  the  binnacle. 

"  David,"   she    observed,   presently,    "  what  you 

need  in  your  life  is  a  device  like  this  to  show  you 

1 86 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

which  way  you  are  headed.  You  sail  around  with 
all  the  energy  in  the  world,  but  you  don't  know 
where  you  are  going." 

He  gazed  thoughtfully  ahead  of  him. 

"  I  believe,"  he  said,  "  I  know  where  such  a  means 
of  enlightenment  is  procurable." 

"  Get  it  quickly,"  she  advised  him. 

"  I  shall  endeavor  to." 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment  with  an  unex- 
plained smile  on  his  lips.  She  met  his  eyes. 

"  I  don't  see  what  you  are  laughing  at,"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

Nevertheless  she  continued  to  look  at  him.  Then 
the  corners  of  her  mouth  began  to  lift  a  little. 

"  David,"  she  observed,  "  you're  the  silliest  per- 
son." 

The  boat  ran  on  through  the  rain.  The  gray 
wall  of  mist  before  them  was  still  unbroken  by  any 
sign  of  shore. 

"  Of  course  you  couldn't  blame  me,"  he  remarked 
at  length,  apropos  of  nothing,  "  for  taking  your  ad- 
vice." 

She  laughed  in  spite  of  herself. 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know  what  you  are  talking 
about,"  she  said.  But  a  new  and  pleasant  excite- 

187 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

ment  stirred  in  her.  Was  it  the  consciousness  of 
pursuit  ? 

And  then  faintly  upon  that  gray  wall  came  the 
shadowy  outline  of  something,  and  almost  on  the 
instant  they  were  running  beside  the  island,  with  the 
trees  and  the  little  house,  showing  vaguely  through 
the  rain.  She  turned  the  bow  of  the  boat  away 
from  it. 

"  Good-bye,  island,"  she  said.  "  Some  day,  per- 
haps, I  shall  stay  longer." 

The  launch  made  a  wide  sweep  and  headed  again 
for  the  city. 

"  How  shall  you  get  to  and  from  your  island  and 
the  shore  ?  "  she  asked,  idly. 

"  I  shall  have  a  canoe.  The  launch  is  too  luxuri- 
ous for  me." 

"  Perhaps  you  will  take  me  across  in  a  canoe  some 
day,"  she  said  lightly.  "  I  should  like  that." 

"  I  am  only  waiting  for  the  chance." 

But  even  then  he  was  wondering  whether  he  would 
ever  live  on  his  island  at  all. 

"  Hold  out  your  foot,  please,"  he  said,  presently. 

She  looked  at  him  in  surprise  and  then  held  out 
her  foot. 

"  It's  very  wet,"  he  asserted.     "  Sailors  ought  not 

188 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

to  wear  low  shoes.  You  had  better  go  down  by  the 
engine  and  dry  off." 

With  a  show  of  meekness— quite  unconvincing — 
she  obeyed.  He  closed  the  hatch  after  her.  The 
rain  had  now  simmered  down  to  a  mere  fog-like 
mist.  A  stiff  breeze  had  sprung  up  from  the  south, 
which  presently  blew  a  hole  in  the  curtain  of  the  sky 
low  at  the  horizon,  and  through  the  long  narrow 
rent  peered  the  light  of  day.  The  mist  lifted  and 
showed  the  city  fresh  and  smiling  like  a  child  after  a 
storm  of  tears.  When  Margaret  came  out  of  the 
cabin  again,  the  sun  had  broken  through  and  a  seg- 
ment of  rainbow  rested  on  the  storm-cloud  across  the 
water,  the  foot  of  it  growing  out  of  the  ground  near 
the  stone  barn  where  they  had  been  the  day  before 
to  see  the  wood  preservative. 

"  See,"  he  said,  "  an  omen  of  good  luck.  There  is 
a  pot  of  gold  there." 

It  was  past  noon  when  they  stepped  out  on  the 
slip  from  the  launch.  She  drew  on  her  gloves. 

"Yesterday  and  this  morning,"  she  observed, 
"  you  have  shown  me  your  life,  so  to  speak.  Now 
I  am  going  to  show  you  mine." 

He  walked  beside  her  wonderingly.     They  made 

their  way  into  the  business  district.     She  hesitated 

189 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

for  a  moment  at  the  corner  of  two  bustling  thorough- 
fares. 

"  This  way,"  she  said,  turning  to  her  right. 

They  continued  down  the  street  for  nearly  a  block. 

"  Ah,"  she  observed,  stopping  suddenly,  "  here  it 
is.  I  thought  it  would  be  about  in  this  location." 

She  pushed  open  the  glass  doors  of  the  place.  It 
was  a  lunch  room — an  energy  distributer  for  the 
business  world  around  it.  The  floors  were  of  white 
ceramic  tile.  The  walls  were  wainscoted  with  a  sort 
of  clear  white  imitation  marble  with  a  surface  like 
glass.  The  table  tops  were  of  the  same  material. 
The  whiteness  of  it  gave  an  air  of  spotlessness  to 
everything. 

"If  they  make  it  look  clean,"  she  said  to  him, 
glancing  about  among  the  crowd  of  people,  "  it 
doesn't  matter  much  what  it  really  is." 

They  asserted  squatter  rights  over  a  table  by  the 
simple  expedient  of  tilting  chairs  against  it.  From 
a  counter  at  the  end  of  the  room  they  chose  by 
guess  what  they  wanted  to  eat  and  bore  it  back  to 
their  lair. 

"  You  have  read  in  the  Bible  somewhere,"  she  said, 
laughing,  "about  the  soldiers  who  passed  by  the 

water's  edge.     Some  lay  down  to  drink  and  were 

190 


DAVID— AND  NO  GOLIATH 

caught  by  the  enemy  and  slain,  but  others  simply 
scooped  up  water  in  their  hands  as  they  walked  by 
and  were  saved.  This  is  the  place  where  you  scoop 
up  food  as  you  walk  by,  and  are  saved." 

He  nodded.  "  You  use  these  places,"  he  said, 
presently,  "  because  they  are  quick.  I  use  them 
frequently  because  they  are  cheap." 

"  It  wasn't  quite  fair  of  me  to  make  you  come," 
she  replied.  "  But  for  the  last  twenty-four  hours  my 
life  has  been  so — so — well,  happy — that  I  needed 
something  rough  like  this  to  bring  me  to  earth  once 
more." 

They  were  soon  out  on  the  street  again. 

"  I  am  sorry  I  have  to  let  you  go,"  he  said,  smiling. 

"  Sorry  myself,"  she  replied. 

They  entered  the  foyer  of  an  office  building  and 
stood  before  the  elevator  cage.  He  held  out  his 
hand. 

"  My  father  once  said  that  you  were  the  Producer 
and  I  the  Waster,"  he  told  her.  "  I  feel  now  as  if 
that  were  true." 

"  Don't  think  that  way,"  she  advised. 

She  touched  his  coat  just  over  his  heart. 

"  It  all  depends,"  she  said,  "  on  just  what  is  in 
there." 

191 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  RAINBOW 

THE  first  thing  she  did  upon  entering  Mr.  Saw- 
yer's office  was  to  inquire  if  there  were  a  letter 
or  a  telegram  for  her.  There  was  none.  It  was  not 
yet  one  o'clock,  and  Mr.  Sawyer  had  not  returned 
from  his  luncheon.  She  was  shown  into  his  pri- 
vate office,  which  looked  out  over  the  water.  She 
amused  herself  by  picking  out  the  places  she  had 
visited  in  the  launch.  Sawyer  himself  came  in  very 
soon. 

"  Miss  Margaret,"  he  exclaimed,  as  she  turned  to 
greet  him,  "  that's  the  place,  over  there." 

He  pointed  to  the  gable  of  the  stone  barn  across 
the  river. 

"  It's  not  for  me,'"  she  replied. 

"Please  don't  talk  like  that,"  he  remonstrated. 
"  Now  listen  to  me.  Of  all  the  firms  who  are  caught 
in  this,  Bundy  and  Son  are  the  only  purveyors  of 
paint.  The  rest  of  us  all  sell  something  else.  We 

could  no  more  handle  paint  than  Bundy  and  Son 

192 


THE  RAINBOW 

could  sell  jewelry.  Don't  you  see?  You  are  our 
only  hope. 

"And,  of  course,"  he  went  on,  "anything  that 
helps  toward  an  easy  settlement  of  the  trouble  helps 
you  as  well  as  the  rest  of  us." 

Margaret  made  some  indeterminate  reply.  Saw- 
yer did  not  press  the  point. 

At  the  meeting  there  were  six  creditors  besides 
Margaret  and  Mr.  Sawyer.  She  fixed  their  names 
in  her  mind  and  endeavored  to  classify  them.  Three 
were  of  the  usual  trade-seeking  type  she  was  accus- 
tomed to,  the  type  who  made  the  selling  of  goods 
a  personal  matter  and  accompanied  their  business 
dealings  with  a  warm  hand-shake  and  a  manner  hail- 
fellow-well-met.  The  others  were  of  no  stereotyped 
class.  One,  a  tall,  spare  man  with  a  red  beard,  sat 
near  her  and  talked  all  the  time  without  apparently 
producing  any  ideas.  Another,  across  the  room, 
balanced  one  of  John  Sawyer's  mahogany  chairs 
deftly  against  the  wall  on  its  two  rearmost  legs, 
poised  as  though  ready  for  immediate  action — a 
bald-headed  little  gentleman,  encased  in  a  white 
vest — whose  sunny  smile  endeavored  to  cast  an  air 
of  sociability  over  the  occasion — without  avail.  For 
beside  him,  stolidly  erect,  sat  the  remaining  creditor, 

193 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

a  rotund,  dignified  gentleman,  whose  countenance, 
solemn  and  sincerely  writ  with  the  consciousness  of 
his  own  wisdom,  seemed  to  insist  upon  the  serious- 
ness of  the  business  at  hand. 

After  some  preliminary  discussion,  John  Sawyer 
rose. 

"  I  wish  to  say,"  he  announced,  "  that  I  have  seen 
Groh  and  that  he  is  willing  to  give  up  his  interest 
and  claim  in  the  factory  for  the  sum  of  one  thousand 
dollars." 

There  was  a  pause. 

"  Suppose  we  don't  give  it  to  him,"  said  the  man 
with  the  red  beard,  in  a  moment. 

"  He'd  go  into  bankruptcy,"  Sawyer  replied. 
"  Having  all  his  debts  canceled  has  no  terrors  for 
him." 

"We  don't  want  him  to  do  that,"  asserted  the 
man. 

"Amen,"  remarked  the  bald-headed  gentleman 
from  his  point  of  vantage  on  the  tilted  chair. 

"Then  the  question  arises — who  will  take  over 
the  factory  ?  " 

There  was  an  expressive  silence. 

"  No  undignified  rush,  anyway,"  observed  the  red 

beard. 

194 


THE  RAINBOW 

The  rotund  solemn  person  rose  and  pulled  down 
his  vest.  He  cleared  his  throat.  There  was  a  most 
important  air  about  him. 

"It  seems  to  me,"  he  announced  portentously, 
"  that  we  should  first  discover  which  of  the  creditors 
— here  present — is  engaged  in  the  paint  business 
and  is  therefore  capable  of  handling  this — er — 
preservative." 

He  looked  about  him  inquiringly  as  if  to  see 
whether  every  one  had  absorbed  this  idea,  and 
slowly  sat  down  again.  Margaret  said  nothing. 

"  Well,  who  are  the  guilty  ones  ? ''  demanded  the 
red-bearded  person,  who  sold  hardware  himself. 

"  My  ears  are  burning,"  said  Margaret,  quietly. 
"  I  am  in  the  paint  business." 

The  bald-headed  man  lowered  his  chair  down 
upon  its  four  legs. 

"  That  settles  it,"  he  observed.     "  Let's  adjourn." 

"  But,"  she  said,  "  I  would  not  recommend  to 
Bundy  and  Son  that  they  assume  the  responsibility 
of  this  factory.  The  wood  preservative  costs  too 
much  to  make." 

"How  do  you  know  that?"  demanded  the  fat 
person,  in  his  resonant  voice. 

She  read  them  some  figures.  These  were  the 

195 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

figures  she  had  obtained  the  day  before,  which 
showed  that  the  cost  of  manufacturing  the  pre- 
servative was  nearly  as  much  as  the  price  for  which 
it  could  be  sold.  They  viewed  her  with  added  re- 
spect. 

"  No  wonder  Groh  could  not  make  money,"  said 
the  bald-headed  man. 

This  development  of  the  situation  threw  all  their 
calculations  out  of  gear.  Sawyer  rose. 

"Under  the  circumstances,"  he  asserted,  "it 
would  of  course  be  unreasonable  for  us  to  expect 
Bundy  and  Son  to  take  over  the  factory.  The 
question  then  arises — what  shall  we  do  ?  " 

A  long  wrangle  followed.  Many  suggestions 
were  received  and  discarded,  and  the  discussion  ran 
on  with  hopeless  indefiniteness.  The  little  clock 
on  the  desk  struck  three,  and  there  was  not  even 
the  first  loose  thread  showing  out  of  the  tangle. 
A  stenographer  came  in  and  said  something  in  a 
low  tone  to  Mr.  Sawyer. 

"  Why,  yes,  she  is  here,"  he  replied.  "  Bring  it 
in." 

The  girl  left  the  room  and  returned  presently 
with  a  telegram  and  a  little  book,  both  of  which 

she  handed  to  Margaret. 

196 


THE  RAINBOW 

"  Will  you  sign  there,  please  ? "  she  requested, 
"  and  there  is  thirty-seven  cents  due." 

Margaret  suppressed  her  excitement  and  signed. 
She  handed  the  book  and  the  money  to  the  girl. 
All  the  discussion  had  stopped  while  this  was  going 
on.  Not  wishing  to  open  the  telegram  with  all  eyes 
upon  her,  she  let  it  lie  in  her  lap.  The  talk,  after  a 
moment's  embarrassed  hesitation,  went  on  again. 
She  presently  opened  the  envelope.  The  message 
was  from  Evans  and  said  : 

"  Get  turpentine  rights  if  possibly  can.  Is  an  ab- 
solute substitute." 

Her  hands  closed  tightly  on  the  sheet  of  yellow 
paper,  and  a  hot  coal  of  excitement  burned  in  her 
breast.  Her  heart  beat  heavily  within  her,  and 
the  odd  thought  came  into  her  head  that  it  was  the 
knocking  of  Opportunity. 

She  knew  that  Evans  would  not  have  urged 
action  if  he  had  not  been  convinced.  The  fact 
that  he  had  used  more  than  the  regulation  ten 
words  was  even  an  indication  of  enthusiasm.  She 
scarcely  heard  the  rumble  of  talk  around  her.  Why 
should  she  ?  The  question  was  settled  now. 

She   had   a  thousand   dollars   in   her  own  right. 

It  was  in  a  government  bond,  and  she  knew  that 

197 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

John  Sawyer  would  endorse  her  note  for  that 
amount  on  the  strength  of  it.  She  would  pay  a 
thousand  dollars  for  the  factory  and  all  that  it 
contained ;  and  she  was  certain  that  the  stock  on 
hand  of  the  wood  preservative  could  be  sold  at 
retail  by  Bundy  and  Son  so  that  she  could  get  al- 
most all  her  thousand  dollars  back.  Then  she 
would  have  the  rights  to  the  turpentine  at  no  cost 
at  all.  And  to  realize  the  value  of  those  rights 
she  had  but  to  think  of  the  Waring  Company, 
which  had  once  been  on  the  verge  of  bankruptcy  by 
reason  solely  of  the  increasing  price  of  turpentine. 

She  felt  that  there  was  not  a  man  in  the  room 
whose  eye  was  not  upon  her.  The  galvanic  current 
set  up  by  the  telegram  seemed  to  have  gone  all  the 
way  round, 

"  I  think,"  she  said,  "  that  it  is  within  my  power 
to  end  this  discussion." 

There  was  an  eloquent  hush. 

"  I  have  just  received  unexpected  news,"  she 
began,  "  which  will  enable  me  to  reconsider  the 
decision  I  made  a  while  ago  about  the  factory." 

"Ah,  ha,"  murmured  the  rotund  gentleman, 
which  exclamation  coming  from  his  deep  chest  as- 
sumed the  proportions  of  a  wise  statement. 

198 


THE  RAINBOW 

"  I  will  be  perfectly  frank  with  you  in  stating  that 
it  is  not  the  wood  preservative  that  tempts  me,"  she 
explained.  "  I  want  to  know  therefore  whether  this 
thousand  dollars  purchases  the  rights  to  everything 
they  manufacture  at  the  factory." 

Astonishment  was  registered  on  every  face. 

"  Why,  that  is  the  only  thing  they  do  manufacture," 
asserted  the  red-bearded  man. 

A  murmur  of  assent  seconded  this. 

"They  do  manufacture  a  few  incidental  things," 
corrected  Sawyer,  at  length,  wonderingly.  "  I  will 
call  up  Groh  and  ask  him  about  it." 

He  seemed  to  be  somewhat  dazed  by  the  new 
turn  of  affairs.  But  he  said  nothing  further.  He 
took  the  receiver  off  the  hook.  The  little  group 
waited  expectantly.  There  followed  a  one-sided  talk. 

"  Groh  says,"  announced  Sawyer  at  length,  hang- 
ing up  the  receiver  again,  "  that  he  is  willing  to  turn 
over  the  rights  of  everything  that  is  manufactured 
there  to  the  person  who  pays  him  the  thousand 
dollars." 

Margaret  drew  a  long  breath. 

"  Then  you  had  better  have  him  come  right  over 
here,"  she  replied. 

Sawyer  did  this  and  summoned  his  attorney,  who 
199 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

understood  the  case.  A  contract  was  drawn,  was 
rewritten  entirely  before  it  satisfied  every  one,  and 
finally  duly  signed  and  witnessed. 

"  But,"  observed  the  rotund  gentleman,  in  surprise, 
after  reading  the  contract,  *'  the  party  buying  the 
rights  is  not  Bundy  and  Son  at  all." 

"  No,"  replied  the  party  of  the  first  part,  "  it's 
Margaret  York." 

In  front  of  the  elevator  upon  a  marble  bench 
reading  a  magazine  sat  David  Bruce.  He  had  been 
waiting  since  half-past  three  and  it  was  now  half- 
past  four.  But  he  decided  that  he  could  wait  just 
as  long  as  the  meeting  up-stairs  in  his  brother-in- 
law's  office  could  continue  to  meet. 

At  ten  minutes  of  five  an  elevator  descended. 
The  door  slid  back.  A  stream  of  people  filed  out 
and  next  to  the  last  person  was  Margaret  herself. 
She  came  over  to  him  immediately,  almost  as  if  she 
might  have  expected  to  see  him  there.  Her  eyes 
were  shining  with  excitement. 

"  Is  it  all  over?  "  he  demanded. 

"  David,"  she  cried,  "  the  rainbow  was  right.  I 
have  something  that  is  going  to  earn  me  thousands 

and  thousands  of  dollars." 

200 


THE  RAINBOW 

He  broke  into  a  smile. 

"Congratulations,"  he  cried,  and  took  her  hand 
in  both  of  his.     And  then  the  smile  disappeared. 
"  But  I'm  sorry,"  he  said. 


201 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER 

THAT  night  she  took  the  train  home.  At  the 
station,  old  Venn  from  the  factory  over  the 
river  was  waiting  for  her,  much  perturbed  over 
his  change  of  employers.  She  told  him  that  as 
soon  as  she  had  had  a  talk  with  Mr.  Bundy  about 
disposing  of  the  wood  preservative  on  hand,  she 
would  discuss  with  Venn  their  plan  of  action ;  but 
she  did  not  say  what  that  was  to  be.  He  let  fall 
the  information  that  one  of  the  men  from  the  War- 
ing Company  had  looked  over  the  plant  that  day. 
Margaret  smiled.  Potter  was  evidently  keeping  his 
eye  on  Felix  Groh. 

"  Did  he  ask  about  your  turpentine  ?  "  she  inquired, 
curiously. 

"Yes,  but  he  didn't  seem  interested.  Come  to 
think  of  it,"  he  corrected,  "  he  did  ask  what  the 
process  was — though  he  did  it  in  an  offhand  way." 

"  Did  you  tell  him  ?  " 

"  No." 

202 


UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER 

When  she  arrived  at  her  office  the  following  day, 
she  found  a  large  amount  of  work  piled  up  on  her 
desk.  This  kept  her  very  busy,  so  that  it  was  well 
along  in  the  afternoon  before  she  had  an  opportunity 
to  discuss  her  trip  with  Mr.  Bundy.  She  found  that 
he  had  become  more  and  more  dismal  all  the  time 
that  she  had  been  away  and  had  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  he  was  quite  certain  to  lose  all  his 
seven  hundred  dollars.  He  was  greatly  relieved, 
therefore,  at  the  settlement  of  the  affair,  and  seemed 
to  share  the  optimism  of  every  one  that  the  little 
German  would  soon  be  on  his  feet  again. 

Margaret's  own  venture  took  his  breath  away,  as 
any  move  in  a  new  direction  always  did.  His  mind 
never  quite  keyed  itself  up  to  the  point  where  he 
understood  how  a  person  could  enter  upon  a  scheme 
whose  certainty  was  not  guaranteed  beforehand. 
But  at  the  same  time  he  felt  rather  relieved  that  it 
was  not  he  himself  who  was  involved  in  it. 

He  was  tremendously  interested,  however,  in  as- 
sisting her  in  disposing  of  the  wood  preservative. 
He  fell  in  with  her  scheme  to  have  Bundy  and  Son 
sell  it  for  her.  And  so  anxious  was  he  that  she 
should  not  lose  money  on  what  he  considered  the 

precarious    undertaking   she  had   embarked   upon 

203 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

that  he  insisted  the  firm  should  take  no  profit  on  the 
sale. 

When  the  little  brass  clock  in  the  office  pointed  to 
a  quarter  before  five,  she  was  quite  thoroughly  tired 
and  was  glad  the  day  was  nearly  over.  The  firing- 
line  was  a  stimulating  place,  but  when  the  sun  went 
down  on  the  day's  work  she  was  usually  glad.  She 
had  her  hat  on  ready  to  go  when  she  was  called  to 
the  telephone.  Mr.  Potter's  voice  answered  her. 

"  I  did  not  know  whether  I  should  find  you  back 
or  not,"  he  said. 

"  How  did  you  know  I  had  gone  ?  " 

"You  will  soon  learn,"  he  explained,  "that  you 
captains  of  industry  cannot  move  about  unob- 
served. 

"  Would  it  be  convenient,"  he  went  on,  "  to  have 
a  person  like  me  call  upon  you  to-night  ?  " 

Her  first  impulse  was  to  say  that  she  was  too 
tired,  but  then  it  occurred  to  her  that  there  were 
several  questions  upon  which  she  might  want  to  ask 
his  advice.  So  she  told  him  that  it  would  be  per- 
fectly convenient. 

When  she  entered  the  little  house  of  Miss  Garnet, 
she  found  that  lady  already  there. 

"  I  missed  you  greatly,"  she  cried.     "  It  seems  as 

204 


UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER 

though  you  have  been  gone  a  month.  We  are  go- 
ing to  have  a  regular  old-fashioned  comfortable 
evening  together." 

"  Mr.  Potter  is  coming  to  share  it  with  us,"  ob- 
served Margaret,  smiling. 

Miss  Garnet  held  up  her  hands. 

"  I  withdraw,"  she  announced.  "  Do  you  know," 
she  went  on,  "  Willis  Potter  used  to  be  almost  a 
beau  of  mine  before  you  came  along.  Now  he's  so 
crazy  about  you  he  can't  see." 

"Is  that  in  keeping  with  Mr.  Potter's  character?" 
Margaret  queried. 

"  Well,"  replied  the  other,  "  when  I  met  him  down 
town  day  before  yesterday,  he  asked  immediately 
about  you  and  when  I  told  him  you  were  away, 
nothing  would  satisfy  him  but  that  he  must  be  told 
where  you  were,  when  you  were  coming  back  and 
all  about  it.  And  when  a  busy  man  like  him  takes 
that  much  interest  and  insists  on  coming  to  see  you 
the  minute  you  come  home,  it  looks  suspicious." 

"  I  will  keep  you  informed  of  developments." 

"You  could  go  far,"  observed  her  companion, 
"  and  fare  worse.  He  makes  about  thirty  thousand 
a  year.  And  a  man  who  earns  that  is  not  to  be 

sneezed  at." 

205 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  have  never  sneezed  at  him,"  replied  Margaret. 

When  Mr.  Potter  arrived,  no  amount  of  maneu- 
vering and  diplomacy  could  keep  Miss  Garnet  in 
the  room.  She  eluded  them  presently  and  left  them 
alone  together  before  the  fire.  In  the  abstract,  this 
was  a  most  romantic  way  to  leave  them,  and  Mar- 
garet might  possibly  have  felt  the  force  of  the  situ- 
ation had  she  not  been  turning  over  in  her  mind  the 
advisability  of  discussing  with  him  the  possibilities 
of  her  turpentine  substitute.  She  felt  that  she  would 
sooner  or  later  go  to  him  for  advice,  for  she  had  ab- 
solute confidence  in  his  ability  to  put  his  finger  on 
the  essentials  of  any  business  problem.  But  never- 
theless she  had  a  feeling  that  there  was  plenty  of 
time.  As  to  the  romantic  aspect  of  the  scene,  there 
was  nothing  in  his  demeanor,  apparently,  to  give 
color  to  it.  He  gave  the  impression  of  being  warm 
and  comfortable  in  the  glow  of  the  fire. 

"Did  you  have  a  successful  trip?"  he  asked — 
which  was  surely  not  a  romantic  question. 

"  Glorious." 

He  looked  at  her  keenly. 

"  Now  that  you  have  had  a  taste  of  business,"  he 
asked,  "  how  do  you  like  it  ?  " 

"  I'm  full  of  enthusiasm  every  minute  for  it." 
206 


UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER 

"  There  is  a  great  fascination  about  it,"  he  as- 
serted, seriously.  "It  is  a  big  game  that  you  have 
to  keep  on  playing  all  the  time.  It  wraps  itself 
around  your  life.  You  can't  stop  playing  for  one 
minute,  lest  in  that  minute  you  lose  ground  and  the 
rest  of  them  come  down  on  you  like  a  pack  of 
wolves." 

"  I  haven't  come  across  anything  as  desperate  as 
that  yet." 

"  You  will  as  you  push  up  toward  the  top.  And 
you  will  go  to  the  top.  You  have  the  punch — 
which  is  a  humble  way  of  saying  you  are  thinking 
just  a  little  bit  better  and  a  little  bit  truer  than  the 
next  man.  Are  you  going  through  to  the  end  ?  "  he 
asked,  abruptly.  "  Or  is  there  a  shelter  by  the  way- 
side?" 

"  A  shelter  by  the  wayside  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  you  will  marry  in  the  midst  of  things," 
he  explained,  "and  leave  the  procession." 

"  I  have  no  such  idea  at  present,"  she  said. 

"  I  am  relieved  to  hear  it." 

"  You  wish  me  to  be  a  spinster  all  my  life  ?  "  she 
asked,  smiling. 

"  No,"  he  replied.     "  No.     I  believe  that  would  be 

an  error.     But  I  also  think  it  would  be  a  great  pity 

207 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

to  marry  if  you  married  a  person  who  would  inter- 
rupt your  career." 

"  I  think  so  too,"  she  observed. 

That  was  all  they  said  on  that  subject.  In  think- 
ing over  the  situation  later,  she  remembered  that 
there  had  been  no  word  more  romantic  nor  senti- 
mental than  that.  And  yet  when  he  rose  to  go  he 
took  both  her  hands.  It  was  a  strong,  firm  clasp — 
the  clasp  of  a  strong,  big  man.  Even  surprising  as 
it  was,  it  seemed  in  keeping  with  the  capability  of 
him  that  he  had  let  nothing  show  until  it  was  the 
exact  time  to  tell  about  it. 

"  Miss  Margaret,"  he  said,  looking  at  her  so 
firmly  that  her  own  glance  dropped  before  him,  "  I 
am  not  a  man  of  polished  words  and  beautiful  sen- 
tences. When  I  have  anything  to  say  I  say  it  in 
the  first  words  that  come  to  my  tongue.  I  spoke  to 
you  this  evening  about  the  possibility  of  your  mar- 
rying. And  I  spoke  of  that  with  a  purpose." 

He  paused.  She  made  an  effort  to  withdraw  her 
hands,  but  he  held  them,  with  the  same  firm  and 
continued  clasp — she  could  not  help  thinking — in 
which  she  had  seen  him  grip  the  hand  of  an  im- 
portant business  associate.  So  she  let  her  hands 

rest  there. 

208 


UNSENTIMENTAL  MR.  POTTER 

"  I  have  seen  no  woman,"  he  went  on,  "  who  has 
impressed  me  as  being  so  mentally  acute,  so  intelli- 
gent, so  quick  of  decision  and  so — so  beautiful  as 
yourself — and  I  have  seen  thousands  of  women. 
You  supply  in  me  a  need  that  I  have  always  felt. 
You  are  necessary  to  me." 

This  time  she  withdrew  her  hands  and  sank  into 
a  chair,  bewildered  and  astonished. 

"  I  should  not  want  any  marriage,"  he  said,  "  to 
interfere  with  your  work,  and  I  should  see  to  it  that 
if  you  married  me  your  career  would  not  be  spoiled. 
In  fact,"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  nearer  approach  to 
enthusiasm  than  he  had  reached  before,  "  I  have 
been  turning  over  in  my  mind  the  possibility  of  hit- 
ting upon  some  scheme  by  which  we  could  form  a 
business  partnership  as  well  as  a — a  personal  one. 

"  I  do  not  ask  you  for  an  answer  to  this  proposi- 
tion to-night,"  he  said,  feeling  that  the  most  advan- 
tageous plan  was  to  press  his  plan  gently.  "  It  is 
not  a  matter  to  be  decided  quickly.  Developments 
will  come,  things  will  happen,  objections  of  to-day 
will  pass  away  to-morrow.  And  remember  this  is 
an  important  affair  for  me  and,  I  feel,  important  also 
for  you." 

She  roused  herself  and  tried  to  think  what  she 

209 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

could  say.  She  had  a  far-reaching  admiration  for 
him — but  she  did  not  love  him,  and  she  did  not  be- 
lieve that  she  would  love  him,  although  she  knew 
that  no  one  could  be  certain  of  such  a  thing.  If  he 
had  been  sentimental  and  pleading,  as  she  imagined 
most  men  would  have  been,  she  could  have  com- 
forted him.  But  he  was  so  reserved  and — well,  so 
concise  that  the  idea  of  comfort  was  absurd.  She 
had  either  to  answer  him  "Yes"  or  "No"  or  by 
promise  of  action  at  some  future  date.  And  he 
seemed  to  want  to  defer  the  answer  "  No."  So  she 
said  nothing. 

He  knew  to  a  certain  degree  what  was  in  her 
mind.  So  he  held  out  his  hand. 

"  No  answer  now,"  he  announced.  "  Good- 
night." 

She  rose  and  took  the  hand,  looking  squarely  in 
his  eyes. 

"  Good-night,"  she  said. 

And  when  he  had  closed  the  door  behind  him, 
she  continued  to  gaze  at  it,  fascinated  and  still  sur- 
prised. 


210 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY 

AS  the  clock  was  striking  eight,  Margaret 
entered  her  office.  This  was  an  hour  earlier 
than  usual,  but  she  had  an  appointment  with  Evans, 
of  the  Waring  Company,  who  must  be  at  work  by 
nine.  Evans  was  already  there. 

"  How  would  you  like,"  she  demanded,  as  she 
took  off  her  hat,  "to  go  down  to  Bay  City  and  run 
my — my  turpentine  factory  ?  "  She  smiled  at  the  im- 
portant sound  of  this.  "  The  old  fellow  who  is  there 
is  too  dreamy.  With  him  in  charge  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  make  money." 

"I'll  go  in  a  minute,"  replied  Evans,  unhesita- 
tingly, "  on  one  condition." 

"What  is  that?" 

"  That  you  allow  me  to  manufacture  my  own  new 
product  there  as  well." 

She  considered  the  matter  a  moment. 

"  All  right,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  know  what  your 
product  is,  but  if  you  buy  your  material  and  pay  for 

your  share  of  the  labor,  I  have  no  objection  to  it." 

211 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Then  I  will  go." 

"  Good." 

She  hung  up  her  hat  and  coat  in  the  closet  of  the 
inner  room. 

"  What  is  your  product  ?  "  she  asked,  returning. 

"  Miss  York,"  he  announced,  "  I  am  one  step  ahead 
of  the  Waring  Company  at  last.  They  see  what  is 
coming  and  are  endeavoring  to  meet  new  conditions, 
but  I  have  met  them  already." 

"How?" 

"  You  know,  of  course,"  he  replied,  "  that  there 
are  styles  in  paint  just  as  surely  as  there  are  styles 
in  women's  hats.  The  wave  that  the  Waring  Com- 
pany came  in  on  was  the  craze  for  stained  wood- 
work. But  people  now  are  beginning  to  go  back  to 
paint  Enamel  paint  finish  is  the  proper  thing,  and 
the  craze  for  it  is  spreading  like  a  disease." 

He  had  two  small  packages  in  his  hand.  One 
of  these  he  unwrapped,  exhibiting  a  piece  of  painted 
wood  so  carefully  finished  that  it  looked  like  a  piece 
of  ivory.  She  ran  her  fingers  over  its  surface,  and  no 
rubbed  marble  could  have  been  smoother. 

"  That  has  eight  coats  of  paint  on  it,"  he  said. 
"  Each  coat  has  been  sandpapered  smooth,  and  the 

last  coat  has  been  rubbed  with  pumice  stone.     Miss 

212 


THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY 

Garnet  will  tell  you  that  that  is  the  regular  specifi- 
cation for  this  kind  of  work.  It  is  most  expensive." 

"  Naturally,"  she  commented. 

He  unwrapped  the  other  package.  It  was  a 
similar  piece  of  wood. 

"  This  is  a  sample  of  my  new  paint.  Only  two 
coats  are  necessary.  It  is  put  on  hot  and  dries  off 
as  smooth  as  the  icing  on  the  top  of  a  cake.  Com- 
pare them." 

She  saw  no  difference. 

"  I  will  make  my  fortune  on  it,"  he  cried. 

"  I  have  no  objection  to  your  manufacturing  it," 
she  said,  "  but  remember  this.  While  you  are  down 
there,  my  work  comes  first.  If  you  make  good  on 
that,  I  don't  care  what  else  you  do.  If  you  don't,  the 
arrangement  will  be  canceled." 

"Then  we  are  to  consider  it  settled?"  he  asked. 

"  There  is  one  other  thing,"  she  responded.  "  Mr. 
Potter  has  been  a  very  good  friend  of  ours.  I  feel 
that  I  must  say  a  word  to  him  about  it.  If  he  is 
willing  to  give  you  up  in  order  that  you  may  better 
yourself,  we  can  consider  the  arrangement  as  settled. 
If,  however,  he  feels  that  they  need  your  services,  I 
shouldn't  feel  justified  in  stealing  you  from  him." 

"  All  right,"  said  Evans,  "  but  I  hardly  think  he 
213 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

will  be  broken-hearted.  He  told  me  the  other  day 
that  unless  I  produced  something  for  them  soon,  I 
would  have  to  go." 

"  Well,  that  will  make  it  easier,  of  course." 

Later  in  the  morning  she  called  up  Potter  and  told 
him  that  she  had  a  position  open  for  Evans  which 
would  give  him  more  chance,  and  asked  if  Potter 
had  any  objections.  She  did  not  explain  where  the 
position  was,  although  she  knew  he  would  realize  it 
was  not  with  Bundy  and  Son. 

"  I  have  no  objections  whatever,"  said  he.  "  Just 
a  moment,  Miss  York."  There  was  a  pause  as 
though  he  were  looking  for  something.  "  I  have 
here,"  he  went  on,  "  a  letter  giving  me  some  infor- 
mation about  a  subject  upon  which  I  would  like  to 
confer  with  you.  Could  you — ah — lunch  with  me 
to-day  ?  " 

"  Why,  yes,"  she  replied. 

"  I  will  come  for  you  at  one,  if  that  is  convenient," 
he  said. 

That  was  convenient,  and  at  one  o'clock  his  car 
stopped  before  Bundy  and  Son's.  She  was  curious 
to  know  what  he  would  talk  about.  She  was  quite 
certain  that  it  was  not  a  personal  matter,  as  he  never 

allowed  anything  but  business  to  crowd  into  his  day. 

214 


THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY 

"  I  am  so  glad  you  wore  that  suit,"  he  said. 

Usually  he  was  so  absorbed  in  his  work  that  it 
came  as  a  surprise  when  he  noted  the  existence  of 
any  personal  charm  in  her.  She  laughed. 

"  I  hope  I  shall  do  you  credit,"  she  replied. 

She  had  noted  many  times  that  one  of  the  phases 
of  his  interest  in  her  was  a  pride  in  being  seen  with 
her.  It  flattered  him  to  have  people  look  approv- 
ingly at  her  when  they  entered  a  public  place  to- 
gether. It  therefore  did  not  surprise  her  when  they 
drove  up  to  a  very  fashionable  restaurant.  She 
was  always  entertained  at  the  bluff,  cavalier  manner 
with  which  he  entered  such  a  place.  His  bearing 
and  the  air  of  thorough  sophistication  he  could 
assume  commanded  respect  down  to  the  last  'bus 
boy.  He  took  pride  in  knowing  what  the  best  to 
be  had  consisted  of,  and  saw  to  it  that  he  got 
nothing  less. 

Margaret  enjoyed  going  about  with  him.  He 
always  had  the  table  in  the  best  location.  He 
always  had  the  best  things  provided  by  that  par- 
ticular establishment — and  had  them  provided  in  the 
best  manner.  If  they  were  not,  he  was  capable, 
with  a  brief  statement  made  to  the  proper  person,  of 
raising  just  as  much  trouble  there  as  he  could  in  the 

215 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

plant  of  the  Waring  Company  by  the  same  means. 
And  he  would  make  his  statement  with  the  same 
low-toned,  ice-cold  suavity  in  the  one  place  as  in 
the  other. 

When  he  had  given  his  order,  he  clasped  his  well- 
groomed  hands  on  the  table  before  him. 

"  What  do  you  know,"  he  asked,  looking  straight 
at  her,  "  about  a  substitute  for  turpentine  ?  " 

"  Everything,"  she  replied. 

"  My  admiration  for  you  grows  every  day,"  he 
asserted. 

"  How  did  you  hear  of  it?" 

He  hesitated. 

"  I  had  a  letter — to-day — telling  me  of  it." 

"  Why  did  you  stop  to  think  before  you  an- 
swered ?  "  she  demanded,  challengingly. 

"  Did  I  stop  to  think?  "  was  his  bland  reply. 

"  I  was  going  to  say,"  he  went  on,  "  that  if  you 
are  thinking  of  letting  Evans  run  your  factory  at 
Bay  City,  you  have  made  a  wise  choice.  He  is  of 
no  value  to  us,  because  he  is  dissatisfied.  But  he  is 
a  capable  man." 

"  Let  me  talk  against  myself  for  a  moment,"  she 
said,  in  reply.  "  You  had  better  not  let  Evans  go. 

Wouldn't  it  be  policy  to  make  him  satisfied  ?     I  don't 

216 


THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY 

want  to  be  instrumental  in  putting  him  against  you 
instead  of  for  you." 

"  I  realize,"  he  observed,  "  that  Evans  may  sooner 
or  later  put  on  the  market  one  of  his  own  dis- 
coveries, which  if  successful  would  cut  into  our 
trade.  But  I  am  not  going  to  bribe  him  with  higher 
wages  not  to  do  it.  If  he  thinks  he  can  beat  us  at 
our  game,  he  is  welcome." 

"Very  good,"  she  replied.  "Then  I  have  no 
compunctions  about  taking  him." 

He  was  silent  for  quite  a  while. 

"  Besides,"  he  said,  "  it  will  be  a  matter  of  great 
importance  to  me  to  have  him  working  for  your 
success." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

"  In  addition  to  that,"  he  went  on,  "  it  has  oc- 
curred to  me,  as  it  has  of  course  to  you,  that  if  you 
succeed  with  this  venture  in  a  small  way,  you  will 
presently  wish  to  succeed  in  a  large  way ;  and  you 
will  need  capital." 

She  was  interested.  This  phase  of  the  question 
she  had  been  giving  considerable  thought  to. 

"  I  am  interested,"  he  went  on,  "  because  in  one 
year  I  shall  have  quite  a  large  sum  of  money  at  my 

disposal.     I    may  be  able  to  help   you.     The  ar- 

217 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

rangement  will,  of  course,  be  to  our  mutual  ad- 
vantage." 

"  By  that  time,"  she  observed,  "  we  shall  know 
whether  the  turpentine  has  been  well  received  by 
the  trade,  and  you  can  then  come  in  with  a 
minimum  of  risk  ?  "  Sometimes,  without  knowing 
just  why,  she  had  the  feeling  that  the  man  was 
always  smoothing  the  ground  for  himself. 

"  I  recognize  the  criticism  in  your  tone,"  he  said, 
evenly.  "  Permit  me  to  say  this.  To  show  you  how 
much  I  think  of  your  discovery,  I  offer  you  now 
double  what  you  paid  for  it — whatever  that  was." 

"  Couldn't  accept,"  she  replied.  "  If,  however, 
you  are  willing  to  invest  that  money  in  the  venture 
and  let  me  have  control " 

"  You  don't  know  me,"  he  interrupted.  "  7  must 
have  control,  if  I  am  to  put  my  energy  and  money 
in  it." 

"  If  I  were  to  accept  the  offer  you  made  one  even- 
ing of  last  week,"  she  asked,  demurely,  "would 
you  expect  to  have  control  then  ?  " 

"  Wouldn't  you  expect  me  to  ?  "  he  demanded. 

She  drew  a  line  on  the  cloth  with  her  finger. 
"  Doubtless,"  she  replied.  But  even  as  she  spoke 

she  was  conscious  of  a  doubt. 

218 


THE  YORK-POTTER  COMPANY 

She  regretted  somewhat  that,  in  a  spirit  of  banter, 
she  had  brought  up  the  question.  He  leaned  for- 
ward. 

"  Can  you  not  accept  my  offer  ?  "  he  asked,  ear- 
nestly. "  Then  whatever  we  go  into  will  be  on 
equal  shares.  And  I  will  put  all  the  money  I  have, 
if  necessary,  into  your  venture.  Think  how  fine  it 
would  be  for  us  to  make  a  tremendous  success  of 
this  thing — together." 

She  listened  to  him  with  interest. 

"  We  would  have,"  he  went  on,  "  a  plant  bigger — 
and  better — than  the  Waring  Company's.  We  would 
call  it  the  York-Potter  Manufacturing  Company. 
And  you  would  have  your  office  on  the  right  of  the 
entrance  and  I  would  have  mine  on  the  left.  And  at 
five  o'clock  every  afternoon  I  would  call  you  up  on 
an  intercommunicating  telephone  and  say,  '  Mrs. 
Potter,  are  you  ready  to  go  home  ? '  and  you  would 
reply,  '  Just  a  minute,  until  I  sign  these  letters,'  and 
then  away  we  would  whisk  in  our  machine.  Can 
you  think  of  anything  more  idyllic  than  such  a 
life  ?  " 

"  It  is  a  pretty  picture,"  she  replied.  "  You  must 
educate  me  up  to  it." 


219 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN 

"  "\7"OU  would  be  extremely  foolish,"  asserted 
•*•  Dora  Garnet,  "not  to  marry  Willis  Potter. 
It  is  an  ideal  match  for  a  girl  with  a  career  before 
her,  as  you  have." 

"  I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk  about  my  career  as  if 
it  were  a  case  of  hay-fever  that  couldn't  be  gotten 
rid  of,"  said  Margaret.  "  This  '  career '  that  you 
and  Mr.  Potter  talk  about  is  merely  the  result  of  my 
having  to  do  something  to  earn  my  living.  I  didn't 
enter  upon  it  to  make  myself  famous." 

"  I  am  only  looking  forward,"  said  Dora,  "  to 
your  ultimate  happiness.  When  a  man  marries,  he 
keeps  right  on  with  whatever  he  had  been  trying  to 
accomplish  before.  When  a  woman  marries  she 
gives  up  everything  and  starts  afresh.  If  you 
marry  Potter,  your  life  can  go  on  with  no  inter- 
ruption." 

"  What  do  I  get  married  for  ?  "  queried  Margaret. 
"  So  I  can  be  just  the  same  as  I  was  before,  or  so  I 

can  be  different  ?  " 

220 


THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN 

"  Oh,  I  grant  you,  you  marry,  if  you  marry  at 
all,  because  you  think  it  is  something  different  and 
better,  which  you  permit,  on  that  account,  to  push 
aside  the  life  you  have  been  leading.  But  I  think 
it  is  pathetic  for  a  girl  to  work  up  to  a  state  of 
proficiency  in  one  thing  and  then  give  it  up  at  the 
snap  of  a  finger." 

"I  think  it  is  pathetic  too.  And  I  shan't  give 
up  my  work  until  I  know  that  I  want  to  be  married 
so  much  that  I  shall  not  only  be  willing  to  give  it  up 
but  that  I  shall  be  willing  to  give  it  up  with  enthu- 
siasm." 

"  Brave  words,  fair  maiden,  brave  words.  But  if 
you  marry  Willis  Potter,  you  won't  have  to  give  up 
your  work — either  with  enthusiasm  or  without  it." 

"  I  don't  really  insist  on  being  married,  you 
know,"  Margaret  explained.  "  I  can  manage  to  be 
contented  right  here  with  you." 

"  Doubtless,  for  the  present — until  there  comes 
along  some  sweet  boy  with  nice  blue  eyes  and  not 
a  red  cent — and  you  will  marry  him.  And  if  you 
care  to  have  him  possess  self-respect,  you  will  let 
him  support  you.  If  you  don't,  you  will  give  him 
a  job  as  office  boy  at  Bundy  and  Son's.  Either  one 

of  those  alternatives  would  be  pleasant." 

221 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

Margaret  looked  at  her  thoughtfully. 

"  Dora,"  she  asked,  "  do  you  want  me  to  tell  you 
something?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Well,  those  reasons  you  have  given  are  the 
very  reasons  why  I  am  considering  Mr.  Potter 
seriously." 

"  Are  you  considering  him  seriously  ?  " 

"  Sometimes.  And  then  again  it  makes  me  ill  to 
think  about  it." 

"Why?" 

"I  was  about  to  say  he  was  insincere.  But  he 
isn't.  He  is  thoroughly  sincere  to  his  business, 
which  is  the  only  thing  that  counts  with  him.  Every- 
thing else  has  to  shift  for  itself,  and  I  should  be  one 
of  the  things  that  shifted." 

"I  shouldn't  look  at  it  that  way.  You  and  he 
and  the  business  would  grow  to  be  synonymous." 

"  Perhaps.  But  I  don't  want  to  be  married  to  be 
a  synonym,"  she  replied. 

She  knew,  however,  that  whatever  man  proposed 
marriage  to  her,  her  present  life  would  temper  her 
decision.  Her  life  had  a  strong  grip  upon  her.  It 
held  her  enthusiasm  and  her  interest.  She  had  a 

pride  in  it.     When  she  was  mentioned  in  the  letters 

222 


THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN 

of  Bundy  and  Son  as  "Our  Miss  York,"  the  badge 
of  servitude  thus  placed  upon  her  was  pleasant  and 
stimulating.  It  enlisted  her  in  the  army  of  workers 
— it  pointed  to  her  as  a  wielder  of  the  sword — the 
holder  of  five  talents,  who  was  acknowledged  thereby 
to  be  striving  to  bring  in  five  other  talents  to  place 
beside  them.  And  what  could  be  more  sufficient 
joy  than  that? 

She  thought  of  Potter  and  his  offer  of  marriage 
very  frequently,  although  when  he  first  made  it,  she 
had  felt  that  she  would  never  come  to  view  it  as  a 
possibility.  But  she  could  not  help  agreeing  with 
Dora  that  it  was  advantageous — that  his  money 
would  give  her  many  things,  and  that  their  simi- 
larity of  occupation  would  make  them  congenial. 
It  was  only  because  she  sometimes  felt  that  marriage 
must  be  meant  to  be  a  little  more  than  this — which 
seemed  really  to  be  much  more  like  a  business  part- 
nership— that  she  found  a  real  objection  to  it. 

She  told  herself  she  did  not  love  him ;  but  that 
was  not  a  convincing  statement.  What  was  love, 
anyway?  Wasn't  it  mostly  a  sort  of  congeniality 
that  one  has  become  accustomed  to  ?  And  he  was 
congenial.  He  was  interesting — she  even  admired 

him.    There  were  no  real  obstacles  in  the  way.    She 

223 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

knew  that  it  was  possible  some  day  that  she  might 
take  up  the  telephone  at  her  elbow  and  say  "  Yes  " 
to  him. 

And  then  there  were  other  days  when  she  did  not 
want  to  think  about  him.  These  were  the  days 
when  she  felt  less  buoyant  about  her  business,  when 
things  had  gone  less  well,  when  she  had  made  mis- 
takes or  other  people  had  made  mistakes  for  her, 
and  she  was  dismal  about  the  world.  Then  she  felt 
no  enthusiasm  for  the  shoulder-to-shoulder  fight  that 
her  marriage  with  Potter  would  mean.  Then  she 
felt  that  what  she  needed  was  a  companion  and  not 
a  brother-in-arms  merely,  whose  main  virtue  would 
be  that  he  was  marching  in  the  same  direction  that 
she  was.  She  might  not  be  able  to  extract  sym- 
pathy from  Potter,  and,  business-woman  though  she 
was,  she  knew  perfectly  well  that  she  was  human. 

She  had  many  of  these  tired  days  right  at  this 
time,  when  she  and  Evans  were  endeavoring  to  get 
her  small  factory  running  under  the  very  best  con- 
ditions possible.  The  barometer  of  her  spirits  some- 
times sank  very  low.  The  constant  hammering  of 
little  things  often  used  up  all  the  day's  enthusiasm 
before  the  day  was  over. 

One  day  in  particular  was  an  especially  hard  tax 
224 


THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN 

on  her  endurance,  Evans  had  called  her  up  at 
seven  in  the  morning  and  had  said  there  was  some 
equipment  they  needed  which  he  knew  could  be 
bought  from  a  certain  firm  for  a  low  price.  At  eight 
o'clock,  therefore,  after  a  sketch  of  a  breakfast,  she 
had  boarded  a  train  with  him,  girded  for  battle. 
They  had  spent  a  dirty,  dusty  morning  looking 
equipment  over,  had  dispensed  with  luncheon  in 
favor  of  a  what-will-you-give,  what-will-you-take 
discussion  with  the  owners  concerning  its  value,  and 
had  carried  the  discussion  long  into  the  afternoon. 
This  was  business  hand-to-hand.  The  firm  they 
were  dealing  with  was  desperately  in  need  of  money. 
And  Margaret  had  to  make  every  penny  do  double 
duty.  Both  sides  had  stood  their  ground.  Finally, 
in  desperation,  she  had  laid  down  an  ultimatum  and 
left  the  conference.  They  had  carried  their  bluff  to 
the  last  minute  and  had  made  no  effort  to  stop  her. 
But  they  had  caught  her  at  the  station  and  had 
accepted  her  terms. 

All  this  left  her  rather  limp  and  worn  out.  The 
stimulus  of  victory  bore  her  up  for  a  time.  But  the 
slow  journey  homeward  soon  dimmed  all  the  glory 
of  that.  The  struggle  had  made  every  nerve  in  her 

alive.    She  parted  from  Evans  and  went  home  stim- 

225 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

ulated  as  to  nerves  and  not  at  all  stimulated  as  to 
body.  Her  mind  was  still  going  at  full  speed.  She 
needed  something  soothing,  something  different, 
to  switch  the  current  of  her  thoughts.  She  won- 
dered if  at  such  a  time  Potter  would  have  been  balm 
for  her  soul. 

It  was  a  feeling  very  nearly  related  to  homesick- 
ness that  oppressed  her.  It  was  pleasant  to  know 
that  she  would  see  Dora  in  a  little  while.  And 
although  Dora  might  not  actually  comfort  her  to 
any  great  extent,  she  was  a  congenial  physical 
presence,  who  would  change  the  current  of  her 
thoughts.  She  was  the  guardian  angel  who  would 
provide  her  with  a  hot  dinner  and  take  her  after- 
ward in  her  automobile  to  the  theatre.  All  this  was 
diverting.  She  stopped  at  the  first  pay  telephone 
station  and  called  Dora. 

"  Are  you  tired  to  death  and  sick  of  your  hum- 
drum life  ?  "  she  demanded,  immediately. 

"  Always,"  replied  Dora,  contentedly. 

"  Then  hurry  home  and  get  ready  to  go  to  the 
theatre  with  me." 

"  I  will  begin  to  hurry  at  once." 

Margaret    boarded    a    street-car,    which    wound 

around  the    city  and  dropped  her  at  length  at  a 

226 


THE  GIFT  FROM  HEAVEN 

corner  more  or  less  remote  from  the  Square.  She 
hurried  along  oblivious  of  the  late  afternoon  sun- 
shine. 

"  Has  Miss  Garnet  come  in  ? "  she  asked  at  the 
door. 

"  No,"  replied  the  maid,  "  but  there  is  a  gentle- 
man to  see  you." 

"A  gentleman?" 

A  figure  appeared  in  the  doorway  that  led  into 
the  little  parlor. 

"  Name  is  Bruce,"  announced  a  voice.  "  David 
Bruce." 

She  put  down  her  bag  on  the  hall  mantelpiece. 

"  David,"  she  said,  "  you're  a  gift  from  Heaven." 


227 


CHAPTER  XX 

WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID  - 

SHE  looked  him  fairly  in  the  eyes — eyes  that  had 
been  familiar  to  her  for  many  a  day — as  eyes 
but  not  as  books  to  read  things  in.  For  one  fleet- 
ing instant  she  felt  she  read  something  in  them  then 
— something  disconcerting  yet  pleasantly  stirring — 
but  just  for  a  fleeting  instant.  She  decided  quickly 
that  what  she  had  seen  was  merely  the  same  frank 
eagerness  of  the  old  days,  the  same  unhidden  pleas- 
ure in  her  presence.  But  her  first  passing  thought 
touched  something  deep  within  her.  She  remem- 
bered that  when  David  had  held  her  hands  at  the 
Sawyers'  the  night  of  their  supper  on  the  island, 
there  had  vibrated  for  a  brief  second  in  her  a  new 
note  whose  tone  she  did  not  recognize.  And  again 
now.  Her  mind  did  not  grasp  the  significance  of  it, 
but  had  there  been  time  to  think  about  it,  she  might 
have  perceived  that  it  was  the  murmur  of  a  hidden 
force,  that  some  day  a  properly-laid  fuse  might  set 

loose. 

228 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  Don't  take  off  your  gloves,"  David  exclaimed. 
"  Let's  walk  out  there  in  the  sunshine." 

"  Oh,  but  I'm  so  tired." 

"  Best  thing  in  the  world  for  you.  What  you 
need  is  ozone.  You  sit  cooped  up  in  an  office  all 
day  and  breathe  carbon  dioxide,  until  an  atom  of 
real  oxygen  feels  like  a  hot  potato  in  your  lungs." 

They  went  down  the  white  marble  steps  and  en- 
tered the  parking  of  the  Square. 

"  Let's  stand  in  the  place,"  she  went  on,  "  where 
there  is  the  most  of  this  oxygen  you  were  talking 
about." 

"  There  is  an  abnormal  amount  of  it  as  you  get 
further  in,"  he  replied. 

They  walked  along  the  gravel  path.  The  trees 
were  covered  with  young,  very  green  little  leaves. 
New  grass  and  clover  had  sprung  up  in  the  turf, 
and  crocuses  pierced  the  sod,  their  gaudy  heads 
making  the  ground  look  as  if  some  one  had  thrown 
colored  beads  upon  it.  The  afternoon  sun  was  drop- 
ping low,  and  the  lace-like  shadows  of  the  trees 
stretched  far  out  across  the  ground.  A  brilliant 
cardinal  bird,  which  Margaret  said  was  a  winter- 
long  inhabitant  of  the  place,  perched  upon  the  limb 

of  a  tree  and  said,  "  Che-ew,  che-ew,  going,  going, 

229 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

going,  going,"  many  times — a  pointless  sort  of  re- 
mark, it  would  seem,  but  one  he  apparently  appre- 
ciated. 

"  Mr.  Lacey's  garden,"  David  said,  "  used  to  look 
just  like  this  in  the  evening.  I  can  remember  watch- 
ing the  shadow  of  the  box  hedge  creep  across  the 
brick  path  inch  by  inch  and  then  climb  up  the  hedge 
upon  the  other  side." 

They  walked  on  in  silence. 

"  And  we  shall  never  see  that  garden  again,"  she 
observed,  at  length. 

"  No.  A  street  cuts  right  through  it,  and  there 
are  rows  of  brick  houses  on  either  side  of  the  street. 
Civilization  !  "  he  cried,  waving  his  hand. 

They  walked  back.  She  stooped  and  picked  a 
four-leaf  clover  from  the  grass.  She  handed  it  to 
him  and  he  drew  it  through  his  buttonhole. 

"  May  it  bring  me  good  luck." 

"  In  what  ?  "  she  asked,  idly. 

"  In  getting  what  I  want." 

"  Is  it  money  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Is  it  reputation  ?  " 

"  No." 

"  Is  it  a  girl  ?  "  she  demanded,  smiling. 

230 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  I  couldn't  get  a  girl,"  he  replied,  "  without  hav- 
ing the  first  two  things  you  spoke  of." 

"  Get  the  first  two,  then,"  she  said. 

He  stirred  the  pebbles  of  the  walk  with  his  foot. 

"  And  then — can  I  get  the  third,  do  you  think?" 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  " 

"  To  be  sure,  how  should  you  know  ?" 

She  looked  at  him  curiously  and  parted  her  lips  to 
say  something.  But  just  then  the  bell  of  an  electric 
automobile  sounded  behind  them.  They  faced 
about  and  saw  Dora  Garnet  coming  toward  them. 
She  stopped  her  machine  by  the  curb  in  front  of 
them. 

"  Dora,  this  is  David,"  Margaret  remarked,  more 
by  way  of  explanation  than  introduction. 

Dora  looked  at  his  eyes  first  of  all. 

"  They're  not  blue,"  she  told  Margaret. 

"  What  are  not  blue?  "  he  asked. 

"  Your  eyes." 

He  laughed,  but  looked  puzzled. 

"  Dora  said  something  philosophical  the  other  day 
about  blue  eyes,"  Margaret  explained.  "  I  have  for- 
gotten what  it  was,  but  I  know  it  was  good." 

"Some  day  perhaps  I  may  have  to  tell  him 
myself.  Get  in,  you  two,  and  let's  insist  on  dinner." 

231 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  That  means  you  are  invited  to  dinner,  David,  so 
you  must  explain  to  Dora  how  much  you  admire 
her  house." 

David  explained. 

"  Margaret,"  exclaimed  Dora,  presently,  "  I  like 
your  Mr.  Bruce  exceedingly." 

"  He's  not  mine." 

David  looked  at  her  and  then  said  : 

"  I  think,  however,  Miss  Garnet,  that  your  house 
is  not  in  character,  exactly." 

She  raised  her  eyebrows. 

"You  should  have  adding  machines  and  type- 
writers and  filing  cases  in  all  the  rooms.  That 
would  carry  out  the  idea  that  you  and  Margaret  are 
business  women.  It  would  give  a  quaint  touch. 
And,  as  I  understand  it,  you  both  consider  business 
as  the  most  important  thing  in  life." 

"  Not  at  all,"  cried  Dora,  with  spirit. 

Margaret  laughed. 

"  Well,"  observed  David,  "  what  then  do  you  con- 
sider more  important  than  business  ?  " 

Dora  frowned  thoughtfully. 

"  There  are  many  things ;  but  I  should  say  that 
honesty,  a  happy  spirit  and  love  for  your  fellow- 
men  were  more  important." 

232 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  I  have  them  all,"  he  replied,  waving  his  hand 
comprehensively.  "  You  should  approve  of  me  un- 
reservedly." 

She  leaned  toward  him. 

"  You  will  observe,"  she  said,  "  that  I  said  love  for 
your  tellow-men." 

He  looked  at  her  calmly.  He  had  no  objection  to 
admitting  that  he  understood  the  innuendo. 

"  Your  inference  is  one  step  in  advance  of  me,"  he 
asserted,  smiling. 

"  Perhaps,"  she  admitted. 

"  What  are  you  talking  about  ? "  demanded  Mar- 
garet. 

"  We  were  discussing  whether  his  eyes  were  not 
blue  after  all,"  said  Dora. 

They  had  a  cozy  dinner  in  the  oval  dining-room, 
David  occupying  the  large  armchair  and  carving — 
with  the  same  ease  with  which  he  did  everything — 
the  brown  roast  chicken.  Under  Dora's  admiring 
gaze,  he  touched  it  with  his  knife  and,  as  if  the  knife 
had  been  a  magic  wand,  the  bird  seemed  to  fall 
apart  and  be  ready  to  serve.  He  and  Dora  dis- 
covered a  congenial  uncon geniality  in  each  other. 
Their  views  were  in  converging  directions ;  he  gaz- 
ing, as  it  were,  toward  one  segment  of  the  horizon 

233 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

and  she  toward  another — and  the  segments  over- 
lapping. Dora  was  materialistic.  Her  idea  was 
work  and  thrift  first  of  all.  Cash,  "  the  munitions  of 
war,"  as  she  called  it,  was  the  paramount  considera- 
tion. And  yet  she  had  lying  beneath  this  a  senti- 
mental appreciation  of  beautiful  things.  She  had 
the  real  pleasure  of  creating  in  her  work,  of  design- 
ing things  to  make  people's  hours  of  ease  more 
pleasant.  David's  paramount  interest  was  in  ideas 
and  in  things  that  made  him  branch  out  into  new 
fields  for  ideas.  Yet  his  secondary  consideration 
was  thrift.  He  respected  money  because  he  had  to 
make  it  reach  a  long  way. 

They  argued  with  each  other  and  at  the  same 
time  they  sympathized  with  each  other's  point  of 
view.  It  is  possible  that  Dora  rather  envied  the  fact 
that  he  was  foot-loose  and  free  to  indulge  his  fancy — 
and  it  is  certain  that  the  contempt  he  tried  to  show 
for  her  interest  in  making  money  was  not  entirely 
real. 

"  I  suppose  you  feel — you  business  women,"  said 
David,  suddenly,  "  that  you  are  a  third  sex — superior 
to  women  because  you  have  the  attributes  of  men, 
and  superior  to  men  because  you  have  the  attributes 
of  women." 

234 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  We  may  feel  that,"  Dora  replied,  gravely.  "  But 
I  feel  as  well  a  sense  of  impending  disaster.  As  I 
grow  older  there  is  not  the  roll  of  drums  about  my 
business  as  there  once  was,  and  I  have  now  lost  the 
martial  spirit.  I  am  beginning  to  plod ;  younger 
spirits  are  overtaking  me.  When  I  am  an  old 
woman  my  grip  will  be  all  gone.  I  shall  have  no 
business.  What  shall  I  have  ?  " 

"You  will  have "  David  began,  and  then 

stopped. 

"  That's  it— nothing." 

Margaret  interposed. 

"  You  will  have  as  much  as  every  one  else." 

"  No.  Some  people  have  friends  or  a  family,  to 
whom  their  going  and  coming  makes  a  difference. 
I  have  not.  I  have  spent  my  life  storing  up  acorns 
for  myself  and  I  shall  have  to  eat  them  alone." 

Margaret  looked  at  her  searchingly ;  and  Dora, 
catching  the  disturbed  look  in  her  face,  broke  sud- 
denly into  a  laugh. 

"  Please  excuse  me  for  this  melancholy  train  of 
thought,"  she  said,  quickly.  "  But  when  I  think  of 
the  three-score-and-ten,  it  chills  me  to  the  bone." 

David  laughed.  She  switched  the  conversation 
to  an  easier  topic  so  deftly  that  the  tide  of  sympathy 

235 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

that  was  rising  in  him  never  reached  its  flood,  but 
subsided  and  was  lost  in  other  things.  The  dusty 
side  of  the  picture  is  easy  to  forget  when  it  is  turned 
toward  the  wall. 

Margaret  sat  still  and  listened  to  them  talk.  It 
was  interesting  to  have  her  two  friends  brought  to- 
gether thus.  Now  and  then  they  appealed  to  her, 
and  she  sided  now  with  one  and  now  with  the  other, 
impartially.  They  talked  so  much  that  it  was  nearly 
eight  when  dinner  was  over,  and  they  had  to  hurry 
to  the  theatre.  The£  had  no  idea  what  play  they 
wanted  to  see. 

"  Anything  but  Julius  Caesar,"  said  Margaret. 

Finally  they  found  themselves  in  seats  behind  a 
post  at  a  popular  musical  comedy.  Their  view  of 
the  stage  was  bad  and  the  show  was  worse  than  the 
view.  So  David  amused  himself  by  making  cari- 
catures of  the  actors  and  actresses  on  the  back  of 
his  program.  He  would  use  about  six  or  seven 
lines  in  making  each  one,  so  that  the  picture  grew 
right  out  of  the  paper  while  you  looked.  His  com- 
panions forgot  about  the  play  in  their  interest  in 
him. 

"  What  is  your  present  business  or  occupation  ?  " 

asked  Dora,  suddenly. 

236 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  Why,"  he  said,  "  I  am  making  a  seagoing 
aeroplane." 

"  What  ? "  she  exclaimed,  laughing. 

"  I  am  making  a  seagoing  aeroplane." 

"  You  had  much  better  stick  right  to  this  sort  of 
thing,"  she  announced,  firmly,  pointing  to  his  pic- 
tures. 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  want  to  stick  to  anything," 
he  replied,  smiling.  "  I  suppose  you  are  thinking 
of  magazine  illustration,"  he  added. 

"  Yes." 

"  That's  a  long,  up-hill  fight." 

"  Dear  me,  boy  ! "  she  cried.  "  So  is  everything 
worth  while." 

As  they  drove  home  after  the  play,  the  full  moon 
hung  over  the  centre  of  the  street  before  them, 
though  it  cast  no  glow  beyond  the  glare  of  the 
electric  lights.  A  soft,  balmy  air  blew  upon  them. 
At  the  Square  there  was  actual  moonlight,  shining 
on  the  gravel  walks  and  the  new-leaved  trees  and 
the  sun-dial  in  the  centre  where  the  walks  crossed. 
Dora  asked  David  if  he  would  wait  and  mail  a  note 
she  wanted  to  write. 

"  Let's  go  look  at  some  real  moonlight,"  he  sug- 
gested to  Margaret. 

237 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I'm  willing.  I  must  talk  to  you  some  time.  I 
can't  get  a  word  in  edgewise  when  Dora  is  present," 
she  said,  laughing. 

"  Miss  Garnet  is  very  cordial,"  he  said,  "  but  she 
doesn't  approve  of  me." 

"  How  is  that  possible  ? "  she  asked,  amiably. 

"  She  thinks  I  am — too  much  interested  in  you." 

She  did  not  reply.  They  walked  along  in  silence. 
The  gravel  crunched  under  their  feet.  There  was 
no  other  sound  save  the  gentle  sighing  of  the  wind 
in  the  trees. 

"  How  could  she  think  that  ?  "  she  asked,  presently. 

"  I  think,"  he  replied,  "  the  fear  was  father  to  the 
thought." 

They  paused  by  the  sun-dial,  on  which  the 
moon's  shadow  was  registering  an  altogether  fal- 
lacious hour. 

"  But  if  it  isn't  true,"  she  said,  "  why  think  about 
it?" 

Her  glance  met  his  for  a  moment.  In  that  dim 
light  where  her  dark  eyes  shone  ever  so  softly  and 
the  white  skin  of  her  throat  was  like  ivory,  she 
seemed  a  goddess.  The  blood  in  her  was  sancti- 
fied, and  he  knew  he  must  think  about  the  thing 

he  had  spoken  of.     For  it  was  true  ! 

238 


WHAT  HE  WOULD  HAVE  SAID 

"  I  was  about  to  say "  he  began,  leaning 

toward  her. 

The  white  dress  of  Dora  Garnet  appeared  in  the 
door  of  the  house  across  the  street. 

"  Margaret,"  she  called. 

Margaret  looked  up.  "  Not  so  close,  David,"  she 
whispered. 

David  did  not  say  what  he  had  started  to  say. 
They  walked  quickly  toward  the  house.  At  the 
door  she  held  out  her  hand. 

"  To-morrow,"  she  said. 


239 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE  BYSTANDER 

DAVID  walked  slowly  down  the  street.  His 
footfalls  echoed  against  the  silent  houses  fac- 
ing the  Square.  As  he  crossed  the  first  intersect- 
ing way,  an  automobile  hurried  toward  him,  its 
horn  barking  impatiently.  He  continued  to  walk, 
neither  quickening  nor  slackening  his  pace.  There 
was  the  noise  of  a  gripping  brake  and  the  machine 
came  to  a  full  stop.  The  driver  shot  a  glance  at 
him  as  he  threw  in  his  gear  and  drove  the  car  for- 
ward. But  David,  interested  in  his  own  thoughts, 
did  not  notice  what  had  occurred. 

At  the  next  corner  he  should  have  turned  home- 
ward. But  he  walked  on.  The  warm  air  blew 
comfortably  in  his  face.  There  was  a  pleasant 
quiet  in  the  usually  noisy  streets.  He  might  have 
been  walking  in  some  silent  woods,  so  calm  was 
everything  about  him.  Even  the  brightly  lighted 
heart  of  the  city  was  taking  a  respite  from  the 

bustle  of  the  day.     The  whistle  of  the  never-sleep- 

240 


THE  BYSTANDER 

ing  peanut  vendor's  oven  was  the  loudest  sound  he 
heard.  Beyond,  the  street  led  on  to  the  wharves, 
the  shadowy  fingers  that  pointed  out  into  the  river. 
He  walked  out  upon  one  of  these.  The  moonlight 
fell  upon  the  dark  waters  that  splashed  and  slapped 
against  the  pilings  below.  Out  in  the  stream  rode 
three  or  four  sailboats,  their  white  anchor  lights 
reflected  beneath  their  hulls  and  their  spars  never 
ceasing  to  move  back  and  forth,  writing  on  the  sky. 

"  I  wonder,"  said  David,  aloud,  presently,  to  the 
river  conversing  at  his  feet,  "  what  she  would  have 
replied  if  I  had  said  all  that  I  had  started  to  say." 

The  waves  surged  and  splashed  and  expressed 
no  definite  opinion.  They  caught  the  wash  of  a 
belated  tug  ploughing  up  the  channel,  and  their  con- 
versation became  turbulent  with  spray  that  leaped 
higher  than  the  piling.  The  tug  was  a  black  sil- 
houette on  the  bosom  of  the  river,  her  port  run- 
ning-light gleaming  like  a  ruby  and  the  white 
marker  swinging  at  the  mast  astern.  Her  engine 
bell  sounded  across  the  water,  the  throbbing  of  her 
machinery  stopped,  and  she  slid  in  silently  and 
accurately  beside  her  wharf. 

"  All  these  things  interest  me,"  he  thought.     "  I 

seem  to  like  to   see  the  world  move  by,  without 

241 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

searching  too  closely  for  a  place  to  put  my  shoulder 
to  help  it  along." 

He  leaned  against  the  piling  beside  him. 

"  But  why  should  I  ?  Why  should  I  help  when 
it  runs  along  of  its  own  momentum  ?  And  if  my 
own  wheel  is  revolving  nicely,  why  should  I  put  a 
shoulder  to  it  ?  " 

A  big  man  walked  out  to  the  end  of  the  wharf. 

"What  are  you  doing  here,  young  man?"  he 
demanded. 

"  Nothing.  My  friends  say,"  he  went  on,  "  that 
is  all  I  ever  do." 

"Well,  don't  you  know  you  aren't  allowed  to 
come  out  on  the  wharves  ?" 

"  No— I  didn't  know  it." 

He  turned  away  from  the  water's  edge  and  walked 
back  with  the  man. 

"  I  was  trying  to  think  out  something,"  he  said. 

"  A  good  many  fellows  try  to  think  out  things 
there,"  returned  the  other,  "  and  end  by  jumping  in, 
especially  you  fellows  who  do  nothing. 

"I'll  give  you  a  piece  of  advice  free,"  he  con- 
tinued. "If  you're  in  trouble,  go  to  work.  The 
world  has  no  use  for  a  chap  that  isn't  paying  his  own 

way." 

242 


THE  BYSTANDER 

David  looked  at  the  man  seriously. 

"Suppose,"  he  said,  "your  expenses  were  a  dollar 
a  day  and  you  had  a  dollar  a  day  coming  to  you 
whether  you  worked  or  not.  What  is  the  answer  to 
that  problem — must  you  work  or  not  ?  " 

The  man  looked  puzzled. 

"  You  work,"  he  replied,  doggedly. 

"  But  why  ?    You're  a  philosopher.     Why  ?  " 

The  other  gave  the  matter  thought. 

"  How  about  the  bees  ?  "  he  said,  at  length. 
"  They  work  hardest  when  the  honey  is  most  plenti- 
ful. Say,  look  here,"  he  broke  off.  "  Suppose  your 
expenses  suddenly  became  two  dollars  a  day?" 

"The  thought  has  occurred  to  me,"  David  re- 
sponded. 

He  said  good-night  and  went  on.  Suppose  his 
expenses  did  double?  What  then?  There  was  no 
immediate  answer  to  that.  Also  he  knew  why  it  was 
that  he  had  never  given  this  matter  serious  con- 
sideration before.  He  quickened  his  pace  with  a 
determined  air. 

"  The  time  has  come  now,"  he  said,  "  for  me  to  put 
my  shoulder  to  the  wheel." 


243 


CHAPTER  XXII 

FALLING  SHORT 

ON  the  following  morning  when  he  awoke, 
David's  glance  fell  upon  his  theatre  program 
of  the  night  before.  He  looked  intently  at  the 
drawings  for  a  moment  and  then  threw  it  into  the 
waste-basket.  But  he  could  not  have  denied  that  an 
unaccustomed  idea  had  found  a  place  in  his  mind. 
When  he  went  down  to  breakfast,  his  father  was  sit- 
ting at  the  table. 

"  Father,"  he  asked,  "  don't  you  know  a  man  who 
is  Art  Editor  on  a  magazine  in  New  York  ?  " 

Mr.  Bruce  was  deep  in  his  morning  paper. 

"  Yes.     His  title  is  misleading.     But  I  know  him." 

"  I  may  ask  you  to  give  me  a  letter  to  him." 

"  I  thought  you  didn't  like  illustration  work,"  de- 
manded his  father,  without  looking  up. 

"  I  don't.  But  I  have  been  doing  things  I  like  for 
so  long,  I  may  try  something  I  don't  like  for  a 
change." 

Mr.  Bruce  stared  at  him.  "  Did  you  see  Mar- 
garet last  night  ?  " 

244 


FALLING  SHORT 

"  Yes." 

"  Did  she  tell  you  that  ?  " 

"  No.     I  suppose  she  would,  had  she  thought  of  it." 

"  How  much  do  you  suppose  Margaret  earns  at 
Bundy's?"  David  asked,  presently. 

"  Earns  about  five  thousand,  gets  about  three." 
Mr.  Bruce  put  down  his  paper.  "  That  makes  a 
large  ante  for  the  man  who  marries  her  to  cover." 

"  I  was  thinking  that,"  his  son  replied. 

When  he  entered  Dora  Garnet's  house  that  even- 
ing, David  found  Dora  alone  in  the  hall  at  the  piano. 
She  held  out  her  hand  to  him  in  greeting  but  went 
on  playing. 

"  You  have  come  to  make  love  to  her  to-night  ?  " 
she  said,  almost  immediately,  with  carefully  judged 
bluntness. 

He  was  taken  aback.  He  hardly  knew  what  reply 
to  make. 

"  Why,  not  in  the  least,"  he  said,  at  length. 

"  If  I  had  any  deep  purpose  at  all  in  coming," 
he  went  on,  "  it  was — to  bid  you  good-bye  for  a 
while." 

She  played  more  softly,  her  slender  fingers  just 
touching  the  keys. 

"  Are  you  going  away  ?  " 
245 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  I  think  so." 

"  I  am  glad  you  decided  to  do  it." 

His  eyes  rested  upon  hers. 

"  Otherwise  you  would  have  suggested  it." 

"  Well,"  she  said,  after  a  pause,  "  why  shouldn't 
I  ?  What  have  you  to  offer  Margaret — besides  a 
good  disposition  ?  " 

He  did  not  reply.     She  pursued  the  idea. 

"  You  must  remember,"  she  observed,  "  that  girls 
now  are  not  as  they  were  fifty  years  ago.  Then 
they  were  educated  from  the  time  they  could  walk, 
with  the  sole  idea  in  view  of  their  ultimate  marriage. 
No  woman  had  to  give  up  ambition  then  when  she 
married.  She  was  attaining  her  only  ambition. 
But  nowadays  when  a  man  asks  a  girl  to  marry  him, 
he  asks  a  girl  who  has  been  taught  the  means  of 
self-support,  and  it  is  frequently  necessary  for  him  to 
decide  whether  that  girl  will  not  mar  her  greater 
career  by  a  union  with  his  lesser  one.  No  man 
wants  to  think  that  when  a  girl  marries  him  she 
does  it  at  the  cost  of  a  great  self-sacrifice.  There  is 
no  romance  in  that." 

"  Of  course  not,"  he  said. 

"  Nothing  is  more  devilish  than  these  childhood 

friendships.     I  like  you,"  she  went  on,  "  and  I  love 

246 


FALLING  SHORT 

Margaret.  And  I  am  not  going  to  let  you  spoil 
each  other's  lives." 

"  Spoil  our  lives  ?  "  he  repeated. 

"  Quite  so.  Listen  to  me.  Here,  on  the  one 
hand,  is  Margaret — young,  ambitious  and  as  bright 
as  a  new  dollar,  interested  in  her  work  and  succeed- 
ing as  few  men  do.  And  she  is  proud  of  it — proud 
to  know  that  everything  she  has  accomplished  has 
been  the  result  of  her  own  efforts." 

"  That  is  true,"  he  said. 

"  On  the  other  hand,  here  is  David  Bruce,  a 
sweet,  lovable,  kind-hearted  boy,  who  is  not  a 
producer,  never  has  been  a  producer,  and  if  called 
upon  now  to  earn  his  living,  would  not  know  where 
to  start." 

She  paused. 

"  Is  that  true  ?  " 

"Almost.  I  might  know  where  to  start,"  he  said, 
"  but  that  is  all." 

Her  hands  left  the  keys  and  she  turned  about 
until  she  faced  him. 

"  I  will  tell  you  what  would  happen  in  case  of  a 
marriage  between  you,"  she  said,  slowly.  "First 
prospect."  She  checked  it  off  on  her  forefinger. 

"  Margaret   would   continue   to   hold   her   position, 

247 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

which  is  becoming  yearly  more  profitable  to  her. 
You  would  either  go  to  work  here  yourself,  or  you 
wouldn't.  It  would  make  no  difference.  You  would 
be  cramped.  You  would  have  to  stay  where  she 
was  because  she  was  earning  the  greater  money. 
If  you  had  an  offer  of  a  good  place  in  another 
city,  you  couldn't  go.  If  her  business  took  her  to 
another  city,  you  would  have  to  give  up  your  own 
position  and  go  too.  Or,  worse  than  that,  you 
would  be  employed  by  her.  Where  would  all  her 
respect  and  admiration  for  you  go  then  ?  Do  you 
think  you  could  hold  it  ?  Do  you  think  you  could 
deceive  her  into  believing  you  were  even  holding 
your  own  respect  for  yourself?  Would  you  trail  at 
any  woman's  chariot  wheels  that  way  ?  Or  do  you 
suppose  any  woman  would  love  you,  trailing  at  her 
chariot  wheels?" 

"  Go  on,"  he  said.  "  I  suppose  none  of  those 
things." 

"  Second  prospect "  She  checked  it  on  her 

finger.  "  Suppose  she  gave  up  her  work,  and 
assumed  the  conventional  position  of  housekeeper 
for  you — for  the  purpose  of  retaining  your  self- 
respect.  You  are  now  allowed  to  earn  the  where- 
withal for  you  both.  What  chance  have  you  to 

248 


FALLING  SHORT 

succeed?  You  have  never  earned  your  own  living ; 
and  just  at  the  time  you  are  beginning,  you  have 
the  stem  necessity  loom  up  large  before  you,  of 
making  money  enough  for  two.  That  is  what  they 
speak  of  as  having  your  nose  to  the  grindstone. 
And  your  wife  will  see  you  struggling  along  the 
trail  where  she  had  succeeded,  and  know  that  if  she 
had  been  in  your  place,  you  both  would  not  have 
known  poverty  and  want  and — what  is  worse — dis- 
couragement. She  will  have  given  up  her  career 
for  you  and  you  will  not  have  made  one  for  your- 
self." 

For  some  time  he  gazed  thoughtfully  at  the  rug 
at  his  feet.  Then  he  raised  his  eyes  to  hers. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  that  out  too,"  he  said. 

She  began  to  play  again  softly. 

"  Of  course,"  she  went  on,  "  whether  you  are 
actually  in  love  with  Margaret  or  not  does  not  make 
such  a  great  difference.  I  think  that  your  position 
is  dangerous,  and  that  you  had  better  retreat  while 
you  can." 

He  gazed  at  the  scroll  pattern  of  the  piano.  Her 
hands  touched  the  keys  again  and  played  softly. 
He  watched  the  slender  fingers  move  almost  auto- 
matically back  and  forward  over  the  black  and 

249 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

white  path.  He  had  the  appearance  of  a  person 
thinking,  yet  he  was  aware  that  he  was  not  thinking 
at  all.  He  was  simply  allowing  an  idea  to  rest,  un- 
changing and  undeveloped,  in  his  mind,  in  the  same 
place  it  had  been  resting.  But  now  he  knew  it  was 
to  stay  there,  and  that  he  had  better  give  in  to  it. 
He  fingered  the  music  that  lay  on  the  polished  wood 
beside  him. 

"  I  feel  that  I  agree  with  you,"  he  said  at  length. 

"  As  to  what  ?  " 

"  That  I  had  better  go  away." 

He  did  not  look  at  her,  but  stared  at  the  white 
keyboard.  She  made  no  reply.  The  music  stopped 
presently  and  her  hands  dropped  into  her  lap.  She 
said,  with  an  effort : 

"  I  think  that  is  best." 

When  Margaret  came  down,  she  found  them  oc- 
cupying the  same  positions  at  the  piano  that  they 
had  taken  when  he  first  came  in. 

"What  are  you  talking  about?"  she  asked  curi- 
ously. "  I  have  heard  your  voices  rumbling  on  and 
rumbling  on  all  the  time  I  have  been  up-stairs.  I 
think  you  are  both  getting  entirely  too  congenial." 

"  I  surprise  myself,"  he  said,  grimly,  "  at  the  way 

I  agree  with  her." 

250 


FALLING  SHORT 

She  sat  down  in  a  Savonarola  chair  against  the 
wall  and  twirled  the  wooden  rings  at  the  end  of  its 
arms.  She  made  a  pretty  picture  in  her  old  rose 
dress  with  her  bright  cheeks  and  her  still  brighter 
eyes. 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  and  Dora  are  not  going  to 
quarrel,"  she  exclaimed.  "  If  you  are  coming  here 
often,  it  will  be  so  much  pleasanter  to  have  us  all 
get  on  happily  together." 

"You  take  so  much  for  granted,  Margaret  dear. 
How  do  you  know  he  is  coming  often  ?  " 

"  He'd  better,"  she  replied,  smiling. 

"  I  am  working  on  some  sketches  up-stairs,"  Dora 
said,  without  looking  at  either  one  of  them,  and 
disappeared. 

Margaret  played  a  tattoo  on  the  floor.  The  toes 
of  her  shoes,  in  that  chair,  just  touched  the  rug. 
She  looked  up  at  him  earnestly.  He  felt  his  breath 
come  faster.  As  she  sat  there,  one  of  her  slippers 
dropped  off  and  clattered  to  the  floor. 

"  My  shoe,  please,"  she  cried,  laughing. 

He  knelt  down  before  her.  He  could  feel  his 
hand  trembling  as  he  slipped  it  on  her  foot.  She 
was  so  close  to  him  that  the  folds  of  her  dress  over 

her  knees  touched  his  cheek  as  he  bent  over.     A 

251 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

faint  perfume  breathed  from  her.  He  forgot  him- 
self, the  room,  the  house, — everything  but  her.  He 
had  but  one  impulse  and  that  was  to  reach  out  and 
take  her  in  his  arms.  He  wanted  her.  He  wanted 
to  love  her — he  wanted  to  touch  her — he  wanted  to 
hold  her. 

Just  then  the  door-bell  rang.  He  rose  quickly. 
The  maid  came  through  the  hall  to  open  the  door. 
She  laid  a  package  on  the  hall  table  and  disap- 
peared again.  In  the  moment  of  silence,  Margaret 
seemed  to  feel  that  something  was  out  of  key. 

"Well?  What  has  Dora  been  saying  to  you?" 
she  demanded. 

"  Nothing." 

He  turned  to  her. 

"  Nothing  at  all — that  I  didn't  know  already." 

He  found  that  he  could  not  stand  there  passive. 
Fire  burned  within  him.  He  wanted  to  take  her  in 
his  arms  and  tell  her  he  loved  her.  He  could  not 
tell  her  the  things  that  were  in  his  mind.  He  could 
not  tell  her  what  Dora  had  told  him,  because  she 
had  made  a  mere  statement  of  his  assets  and  liabili- 
ties at  the  present  moment,  viewed  from  a  highly 
practical  standpoint.  It  was  photographically  accu- 
rate in  that  it  showed  the  external  aspect  of  the  case 

252 


FALLING  SHORT 

faithfully.  It  was  inaccurate  in  that  it  failed  to  take 
into  consideration  that  he  had  not  attempted  to  make 
a  success  as  an  earner  of  money  and  therefore  could 
not  be  said  to  be  a  failure  at  it,  as  Dora  had  indi- 
cated. He  was  not  a  failure.  He  had  lived  his  life 
as  he  had  felt  it  ought  to  be  lived,  amid  the  circum- 
tances  in  which  he  had  found  himself.  He  was  will- 
ing to  admit  that  his  method  of  life  and  power  of 
earning  were  unequal  to  the  present  crisis.  But  not 
so  himself.  He  had  confidence  in  himself.  He  did 
not  propose  to  explain  away  his  past ;  he  did  not 
propose  to  make  promises  as  to  the  future.  Those 
are  the  two  weakest  things  a  man  can  do.  He  felt 
rather  strength  in  his  heart  and  in  his  body.  He 
would  try  out  that  strength,  and  make  his  statement 
when  he  had  accomplished  his  end. 

He  must  have  more  to  bring  her,  he  must  win 
first.  If  he  was  going  he  must  go  quickly.  He 
held  out  his  hand. 

"  Good-night." 

She  rose,  a  disturbed  look  on  her  face. 

"  You  are  not  going — now  ?  " 

There  was  a  silence.  Her  hand  held  his  in  a 
warm  firm  clasp. 

"  You  asked  me  a  moment  ago,"  he  said,  with  an 
253 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

effort,  "  what  was  the  matter  with  me.  There  is 
something  the  matter  with  me.  I  haven't  made 
good." 

She  found  her  hand  free. 

"  That  is  the  reason  I  am  going,"  she  heard  him 
say. 

She  saw  him  take  his  hat  and  move  toward  the 
door.  She  made  a  step  toward  him.  Had  he  seen 
her  eyes  he  would  not  have  gone. 

"  David,"  she  whispered. 

He  paused,  almost  as  if  he  had  not  heard.  She 
did  not  move,  then,  nor  say  one  other  word.  She 
gathered  herself  in  hand.  If  he  felt  that  way — that 
he  had  not  made  good — she  could  see,  even  in  her 
excitement,  that  it  would  not  do  to  bid  him  stay.  It 
was  his  problem — his  battle.  She  simply  stood  there 
looking  at  the  floor.  And  presently  the  door  closed. 

It  was  a  long  while  afterward  that  Dora  came 
down-stairs  and  found  her  still  standing  there. 

"  What  did  he  say  to  you  ? "  she  demanded. 
"  Are  you  crying  ?  " 

"  No,"  said  Margaret,  looking  her  squarely  in  the 
eyes. 


254 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

THE  HIVE 

THE  sun-dial  in  the  Square  registered  many  a 
day.  The  leaves  on  the  trees  grew  large  and 
threw  full  shadows  on  the  ground.  Crocuses  were 
succeeded  by  pansies  and  pansies  by  red  geraniums. 
The  grass  grew  and  was  mowed  and  trimmed,  and 
watered  to  refresh  it  from  the  rays  of  the  hot  sum- 
mer sun.  Katydids  appeared,  and  locusts  sang 
among  the  trees  in  the  evening,  predicting  still  hot- 
ter weather  to  come.  The  dog  days  of  summer 
dragged  their  weary  length  through.  September 
rains  fell  and  the  brown  grass  flourished  and  grew 
green ;  and  before  long  its  verdant  surface  was 
dotted  here  and  there  with  migratory  birds,  already 
winging  their  way  southward.  The  first  crimson 
patches  appeared  in  the  trees.  Chestnut  burrs 
opened  and  dropped  their  brown  harvest  on  the 
ground.  Autumn  had  pushed  summer  over  the 
line. 

Bundy  and  Son  had  flourished  through  the  heat. 
255 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

It  was  their  best  summer  for  many  a  day.  Mar- 
garet disposed  of  all  her  wood  preservative  and 
earned  her  thousand  dollars  back  again,  which  she 
put  immediately  into  improvements  in  her  factory 
at  Bay  City.  The  turpentine  substitute — "  Turpent- 
oil "  as  they  called  it — was  beginning  to  find  a  de- 
mand in  a  small  way.  They  were  selling  all  of  the 
modest  quantity  they  were  able  to  manufacture. 
They  had  also  sold  some  of  Evans'  enamel  finish 
and  were  confident  that  they  were  going  to  be  suc- 
cessful in  selling  very  much  more.  Mr.  Bundy  had 
become  so  much  excited  over  these  new  ventures 
that  several  times  he  had  failed  to  be  on  hand  to 
see  some  of  his  dearest  parasites  emerge  from  the 
host. 

"  Which  only  goes  to  show,"  observed  Margaret, 
"  that  when  a  man  begins  to  take  an  interest  in  busi- 
ness, he  neglects  the  more  important  things  in  life." 

And  many  leagues  to  the  north,  the  same  long 
summer  had  changed  into  the  same  chill  fall.  The 
peanut  vendors  on  the  street  corners  roasted  chest- 
nuts just  as  they  did  on  Severn  Street.  Overcoats 
appeared — and  football  colors.  People  thronged  the 
streets  down-town  to  note  the  clothes  other  people 

actually  proposed  to  wear.     All  the  forenoon  in  a 

256 


THE  HIVE 

certain  city,  a  thousand  men  and  women  with  leisure 
apparently  unlimited  promenaded  the  south  side  of 
the  narrow  fashionable  street. 

Twelve  o'clock  struck.  In  a  narrow  side  street — 
so  narrow  that  had  you  fallen  in  stepping  over  one 
curbstone,  you  would  have  surely  hit  your  head  upon 
the  other — sat  a  tiny  house  with  a  knocker  on  the 
door.  It  was  just  like  all  the  other  unprepossessing 
houses  on  this  unprepossessing  street,  save  that  in 
the  place  of  two  lower  lights  of  the  wide  small-paned 
window  were  leaded  glass  figures  of  seated  monks 
who  stared  at  each  other  across  the  opening.  A 
smell  of  cooking  things  assailed  your  nostrils,  and 
now  and  then  a  man  put  a  key  in  the  Yale  lock  of 
the  door  and  entered,  letting  the  door  slam  behind 
him.  Thereupon  he  looked  for  his  mail  on  a  rack, 
where  rested  a  few  well-worn  letters  and  now  and 
then  a  new  one.  This  ritual  performed,  he  threw 
his  hat  on  some  article  of  furniture,  ducked  his  head 
and  descended  a  narrow  stair,  following  with  a 
primitive  instinct  the  scent  of  food  to  regions  below. 
A  fire  burned  there  in  a  fireplace  and  a  number 
of  men  already  seated  about  the  U-shaped  table 
greeted  him  perhaps  with  scurrilous  remarks,  which 

he  would  try,  in  an  absent  sort  of  way,  to  reply 

257 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

smartly  to,  although  he  was  really  more  interested 
in  getting  a  cup  of  coffee  out  of  a  big  brass  coffee 
urn  on  a  side  table.  Having  obtained  this,  he  pro- 
ceeded very  carefully,  balancing  his  cup  and  walk- 
ing, like  a  man  on  a  tight-rope,  to  a  vacant  spot  at 
the  table. 

Other  men  entered  and  sat  down  where  oppor- 
tunity offered.  But-  it  developed  from  conversation 
that  persons  accustomed  to  lunching  at  the  north 
end  of  the  table  could  not  lunch  comfortably  at  the 
south  end,  and  vice  versa.  A  gentleman  at  the  north 
end  admitted  that  this  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
conversation  at  the  other  end  was  exceedingly  hum- 
drum and  cut-and-dried,  while  the  conversation  at 
his  end  was  possessed  of  much  sparkle. 

At  each  end  of  the  table  sat  a  platter  with  meat 
upon  it  and  a  dish  of  vegetables.  As  the  meat  and 
vegetables  possessed  no  conversational  powers,  it 
was  permissible  to  make  your  levy  from  either  dish, 
although  invasion  of  the  other  side  called  forth  rum- 
blings of  discontent. 

This  was  an  artists'  club.  The  name  on  the  bul- 
letin-board up-stairs  assured  you  of  that,  as  well  as 
the  fact  that  the  temperamental  conversation  about 

this  board  dealt  entirely  with  politics,  football,  breeds 

258 


THE  HIVE 

of  dogs,  how  to  raise  tomatoes,  fishing,  the  relative 
value  of  white  Leghorns  and  white  Wyandottes,  and 
all  the  kindred  topics  dear  to  the  artistic  soul.  A 
thin,  silent  old  fellow  with  grizzled  hair  and  a  griz- 
zled mustache  bent  comfortably  over  his  food,  as 
though  he  were  sincerely  interested  in  it.  When 
addressed  he  answered  with  a  drawl,  as  though  he 
were  quite  too  tired  to  talk. 

You  would  have  said  he  could  not  paint  a  picture 
and  you  might  have  followed  him  around  for  days 
without  changing  your  opinion.  He  would  put  on 
a  rusty  old  suit  and  a  rusty  old  hat  and  a  rusty  old 
expression,  and  wander  aimlessly  down  among  the 
wharves  like  a  stevedore  out  of  a  job.  And  after  a 
time  he  would  sit  down  and  undo  his  kit,  in  a  spot 
where  the  odor  from  the  sugar  refineries  was  virile 
enough  to  curdle  his  colors  and  where  on  the  surface 
of  the  river  floated  a  scum  of  oil  and  grime.  And 
he  would  paint  a  big  tramp  steamer  unloading 
guano.  Perhaps  he  would  paint  there  for  two  or 
three  days  without  becoming  unconscious,  and  he 
would  bring  the  picture  home  under  his  arm  and 
hang  it  out  to  air.  And  when  it  was  cured,  it  usually 
proved,  even  without  the  odor,  to  have  a  feeling  of 
realism  and  humanity  that  made  it  a  real  picture. 

259 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

It  is  a  tribute  to  him  that  he  made  his  living  solely 
by  his  painting.  He  had  very  little  money,  but  it  is 
rather  a  strange  thing  that  while  every  one  about 
him  was  worrying  about  money,  that  was  the  one 
thing  that  never  seemed  to  bother  him  at  all. 

"  Terry,"  said  some  one,  reaching  over  his  shoul- 
der to  spear  a  piece  of  meat  from  the  dish  which 
Terry  had  strategically  placed  in  front  of  himself, 
"  where  have  you  been  for  the  last  week?" 

"  Fishin',"  said  Terry. 

"  Did  they  bite  ?  " 

"  Only  the  mosquitoes." 

The  man  passed  on  collecting  his  luncheon  from 
various  migratory  dishes  which  were  scattered  about 
the  table.  A  member  at  the  other  end  of  the  table 
spoke  up. 

"  What's  this  I  hear,  Terry,  about  your  becoming 
a  model  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  That's  me." 

"  A  model !  "  some  one  exclaimed. 

A  pleased  smile  appeared  on  his  face. 

"  I've  been  posing  for  one  of  these  young  fellows." 
He  looked  carefully  over  the  plate  for  a  satisfactory 
piece  of  meat.  "He  wanted  a  picture  of  an  artist," 

he  explained. 

260 


THE  HIVE 

A  shout  of  laughter  greeted  this  statement. 

"  Well,  that's  what  he  said.  I  told  him  sure  I'd 
pose — I'd  been  noted  for  my  beauty  since  a  child. 
Seems  he  was  making  some  illustrations  for  a  maga- 
zine serial — about  an  artist.  He  took  pains  to  tell 
me  it  was  a  poor  artist.  Well,  I  didn't  know  there 
was  any  other  kind,  but  I  said  all  right.  And  he 
said,  '  Now,  you  look  like  you  were  down  and  out 
and  didn't  have  a  cent.'  "  Terry  leaned  back  in  his 
chair.  "  And  I  told  him,"  he  said,  "  I  didn't  have  to 
change  my  expression  a  particle." 

"  You  must  have  plenty  of  time  on  your  hands  to 
spend  it  posing  for  fellows,  Terry." 

"  Well,  I  liked  this  young  chap,  and  he  seemed  anx- 
ious to  make  good — so  I  thought  I'd  help  him  out." 

Several  men  rose  to  go.  They  stood  aside  to  let 
a  young  man  come  down  the  narrow  stair.  He 
nodded  to  them  and  stopping  by  the  coffee  urn, 
tipped  it  experimentally. 

"  Dry,"  he  observed. 

"  Say,  Terry,"  asked  some  one  at  the  table,  "who 
was  this  fellow  ?  " 

Terry  looked  up. 

"  There  he  is  now,"  he  replied,  pointing  to  the  man 

by  the  coffee  urn. 

261 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Oh,  Bruce !  Hello,  Bruce.  Come  in  and  sit 
down." 

Bruce  looked  hopefully  about  among  the  remnants 
of  the  lunch. 

"  Davie,"  said  a  man  near  him,  "  sit  down  here 
and  tell  us  about  it.  Terry  says  you  have  a  big  com- 
mission to  illustrate  a  serial." 

The  young  man  laughed. 

"  I  wish  you  would  let  me  tell  you  about  that,"  he 
said.  "  I  have  been  after  a  number  of  magazines 
over  in  New  York  trying  to  get  them  to  give  me 
work,  and  they  wouldn't.  There  is  one  magazine  in 
particular,  which  you  know  about,  that  I  have  laid 
steady  siege  to  ;  but  all  attacks  were  repulsed  until 
one  day  I  told  them  that  if  they  would  let  me  have  a 
serial  that  they  were  not  in  a  hurry  about  I'd  make 
illustrations  for  it,  and  if  they  didn't  like  them,  they 
could  send  them  back,  and  if  they  did  like  them,  they 
could  have  them  as  a  gracious  gift.  And  they  were 
so  sick  of  me  they  handed  me  out  a  story — just  to 
get  rid  of  me." 

"  You  are  some  business  man." 

"  Well,  I  had  to  have  the  work.  The  next  day  I'd 
planned  to  take  a  pistol  in  with  me.  And  having  at 

last  got  the  chance,  I  decided  that  the  way  to  make 

262 


THE  HIVE 

good  with  these  magazine  fellows  was  to  accentuate 
character — to  get  away  from  the  stereotyped  stuff 
and  make  all  the  people  just  as  human  as  possible. 
I  thought  Terry  was  a  good,  interesting  type,  and 
I  finally  played  on  his  feelings  so  that  he  agreed  to 
pose  for  me." 

"  May  we  see  the  pictures  ?  "  asked  a  man  down  at 
the  other  corner  of  the  table. 

"  Sorry,"  said  David,  "  but  I  had  to  send  them 
off." 

"Well,  when  they  come  back "  began  the 

other,  and  checked  himself.  "  I  beg  your  pardon," 
he  said,  smiling. 

"  Oh,  don't  apologize  for  an  idea  like  that.  I 
didn't  have  much  hope  they'd  keep  them  when  I  sent 
them." 

"  Have  you  heard  anything  about  them  yet  ? " 
asked  Terry. 

David  looked  up  at  him  with  the  smile  of  a  cat 
that  has  just  swallowed  a  canary. 

"  Got  a  letter  from  the  editor  this  morning,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  saying  he  was  going  to  use  them." 

A  shout  went  round  the  table. 

"  But  you  get  nothing  for  them." 

"  Yes,  I   do.     The   letter  said  they  were  so  well 
263 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

pleased  with  the  work  that  they  did  not  feel  that 
they  ought  to  hold  me  to  my  bargain.  So  they  en- 
closed a  modest  check." 

Terry  struck  a  match  and  held  it  to  his  pipe. 

"  I  am  on  the  way,"  he  said,  "  to  becoming 
famous." 


264 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

THE  EXCEEDING  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 

DAVID  was  extremely  cheerful  over  the  success 
of  his  first  venture.  But  he  was  on  the  train 
the  next  day  bound  for  New  York.  He  did  not 
work  in  New  York,  because  he  knew  hardly  any  one 
at  all  there,  and  he  needed  companions  and  friends 
— people  to  keep  him  stimulated  and  cheerful.  So 
he  lived  where  he  knew  people,  and  traveled  on  the 
train  to  the  mart  of  trade.  And  they  gave  him  another 
story  to  illustrate — mostly  because  he  seemed  bound 
not  to  leave  the  office  until  they  did  give  it  to  him. 

During  the  long  hot  summer  months  when  he 
had  been  doing  no  work  at  all,  he  had  tried  to  re- 
duce himself  to  formula — to  understand  himself. 
And  he  decided  that  for  him  nothing  failed  like 
success.  Success  in  any  particular  direction  bored 
him.  Throughout  his  life  when  he  had  proved  to 
himself  that  he  could  do  any  particular  thing,  his 
ambition  in  regard  to  it  had  been  satisfied,  and  he 
had  felt  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  turn  to 

265 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

something  else.  He  knew,  therefore,  that  as  soon  as 
he  found  he  could  make  the  magazines  use  his 
drawings,  his  tendency  would  be  to  lose  interest. 
And  it  was  then  he  would  have  to  work  harder  than 
he  had  worked  before. 

He  did  not  let  Margaret  know  what  he  was  doing. 
His  idea  was  to  get  an  undisputed  foothold  before 
he  made  a  statement.  He  wanted  to  be  convinced 
himself  before  he  attempted  to  convince  her.  And 
he  felt  that  no  feat  half  accomplished  would  convince 
either  of  them.  But  the  important  thing  was  that  he 
had  found  himself.  He  felt  that  he  was  building  a 
foundation  on  rock  bottom — a  foundation  to  support 
a  slowly-rising  edifice  of  ambition,  enthusiasm  and 
hard  work. 

He  began  to  get  enough  to  do  to  keep  him  busy 
— so  much  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  start 
work  in  his  little  third-story  studio  at  nine  in  the 
morning  and  plod  right  on,  with  an  hour's  inter- 
mission for  lunch,  until  five  in  the  evening.  This 
made  him  restless.  He  would  tear  himself  away 
from  the  men  at  the  little  club  at  one  o'clock  and 
go  back  to  the  solitude  of  his  studio,  realizing  that 
he  had  to  paint  at  the  picture  clamped  to  the  easel 

before  him,  and  that,  if  he  was  to  finish  it,  he  must 

266 


THE  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 

paint  until  dark  that  day  and  the  day  after  and  the 
day  after  that  and  so  on. 

Outside  he  could  see  the  sun  shining  and  peo- 
ple walking  along  and  other  people  in  automobiles. 
But  he  had  to  stay  indoors  and  drive  himself 
forward.  Perhaps  the  picture  he  was  working  on 
was  an  interior,  in  which  he  had  to  indicate  pains- 
taking detail  on  a  scarf  hanging  over  a  table  or 
in  a  rug  or  on  the  ornament  of  a  mantelpiece.  Or 
perhaps  it  was  an  exterior  with  a  balustrade,  in 
which  each  baluster  had  to  be  drawn  and  the 
shadows  cast  upon  it,  every  one  the  same,  right 
across  the  sheet.  There  was  no  inspiration  about 
it — it  was  simply  the  drudgery  of  the  profession 
he  had  chosen.  A  plodding  nature  would  have 
taken  it  without  question  as  a  part  of  the  day's 
work.  But  his  nature  was  not  to  plod. 

He  welcomed  the  men  who  dropped  in  to  gossip. 
He  would  lean  back  in  his  chair  and  listen  to  them 
as  long  as  they  chose  to  stay.  He  could  not  draw 
while  any  one  was  in  the  room,  so  a  visit  cut  just 
that  much  out  of  his  day.  And  sometimes  a  man 
would  come  by  in  an  automobile  and  propose  a 
jaunt  for  the  afternoon.  And  if  the  day  was  fine 

and  he  felt   sluggish   about  his   work,   he    would 

267 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

reason  that  he  would  be  in  better  trim  to  draw  on 
the  morrow  if  he  got  out  and  toned  himself  up  a 
little  to-day.  So  he  would  lock  the  door  of  his 
studio  and  go. 

After  a  few  indulgences  of  this  kind,  he  would 
find  that  he  was  getting  behind  and  would  work  at 
night  to  catch  up.  When  things  got  to  that  state 
he  would  strive  to  cover  surface,  and  forget  that  it 
was  not  simply  area  he  was  supposed  to  deliver — 
but  ideas.  He  found  presently  that  some  of  his 
pictures  began  to  come  back  to  him,  as  unavail- 
able. 

This  was  a  hard  blow.  He  saw  that  he  had  to 
begin  all  over  again.  He  must  cultivate  concen- 
tration. This  meant  remodeling  himself.  He  had 
done  a  great  deal  of  modeling  in  his  life — in  soft 
clay.  But  this  was  harder. 

However,  every  morning  thereafter  when  he  came 
to  his  studio,  he  decided  how  much  he  would  ac- 
complish during  the  day  and,  with  that  goal  fixed 
before  him,  he  found  he  was  able  to  plod  along 
more  steadily.  It  was  the  old  story  of  tying  an 
apple  in  front  of  the  donkey's  nose.  But  it  works 
for  either  animal.  If  a  visitor  poked  his  head  in 

the  door,  he  would  remark,  "  Busy,  old  man,"  and 

268 


THE  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 

go  on  drawing.  And  then  he  had  a  large  sign 
painted  with  "  Model  posing "  inscribed  on  one 
side  of  it  and  "  Gone  to  lunch "  on  the  other, 
which  he  allowed  to  hang  almost  continually  on 
the  outside  of  his  door,  one  face  or  the  other 
showing. 

By  the  time  he  had  held  himself  to  his  task  thus 
from  Thanksgiving  through  the  winter  until  Easter, 
laying  out  his  work  every  morning  and  striving  all 
day  to  accomplish  what  he  had  laid  out,  he  found 
that  he  was  gradually  fitting  into  the  channel  he 
had  scooped  out  for  himself.  He  was  becoming  a 
creature  of  habit,  and  he  was  more  and  more  aston- 
ished every  day  at  the  hold  habit  could  obtain  upon 
him.  He  even  came  to  the  point  when  he  dis- 
covered that  good  sleep  put  him  into  better  shape 
to  paint  on  the  following  day.  He  went  to  bed 
regularly  at  the  unearthly  hour  of  eleven  or  there- 
abouts, and  rose  at  the  still  more  unearthly  hour 
of  seven.  It  must  not  be  supposed  that  any  of 
these  innovations  were  accomplished  without  the 
wrenching  apart  of  his  soul.  But  as  the  determi- 
nation to  succeed  was  imbedded  in  him  firmly,  and 
the  object  of  his  striving  was  never  out  of  his  mind 

for  one  minute  of  the  day,  he  would  have  allowed 

269 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

himself  to  be  stretched  on  the  rack  if  he  thought 
it  would  make  him  more  able  to  get  what  he 
wanted. 

As  he  grew  more  and  more  accustomed  to  his 
new  life  there  came  compensations  he  had  never 
dreamed  of.  The  pleasant  exhaustion  at  the  end  of 
the  day,  bringing  with  it  the  knowlege  that  some- 
thing had  been  accomplished  and  that  he  had 
earned  the  leisure  now  on  his  hands,  was  more 
thrilling  and  consoling  than  any  other  pleasure 
could  have  been.  He  began  to  see  that  the  drudgery 
of  taking  infinite  pains  over  his  pictures  was  only 
a  fancied  drudgery,  for  the  absolute  attention  to  de- 
tail gave  his  pictures  a  realism  and  definiteness  that 
more  than  repaid  him  for  his  pains.  He  had  no 
respect  for  his  pictures  unless  they  were  real.  If  he 
had  a  dinner  table  to  draw,  he  made  a  dinner  table 
with  the  silver  and  glass  and  flowers  and  linen  and 
the  drawn-work  cloth.  If  he  were  painting  soldiers 
he  saw  to  it  that  their  uniforms,  their  insignia,  the 
pattern  of  their  arms  and  such  matters  were  as 
nearly  correct  as  he  could  make  them. 

The  thing  that  was  pleasing  him  most  of  all  was 
the  fact  that  he  was  making  out  of  himself  day  by 

day  a  more  and  more  efficient  machine. 

270 


THE  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 

However,  as  spring  came  on,  it  began  to  be 
harder  to  stay  indoors  when  he  could  work  with  his 
windows  open  and  hear  the  first  chirping  of  the 
birds.  He  had  the  feeling  that  it  would  be  nice  to 
lie  down  somewhere  under  a  tree. 

One  day  a  friend  came  into  his  studio. 

"  I  have  a  proposition  to  make  to  you,"  he  said. 

David  laid  down  his  brush. 

"  I'm  listening,"  he  replied. 

"You're  getting  stale,"  continued  the  friend,  "you 
need  a  change  of  scene — something  to  freshen 
you  up." 

David  ought  to  have  recognized  the  insidiousness 
of  those  words.  But  they  only  struck  him  hard  in 
the  weakest  spot  of  his  armor. 

"  Now  I  have  just  the  chance  for  you — a  chance 
to  go  abroad  and  have  all  your  expenses  paid.  It 
will  give  you  new  experiences,  new  scenes  and  a 
chance  for  plenty  of  new  local  color.  There  is  an 
expedition  going  over  to  Greece  to  dig  up  old 
temples  and  so  forth,  and  they  need  an  all-around 
man  like  you,  who  can  draw,  to  make  pictures  of 
what  they  find.  It's  an  easy  job.  Four  months 
over  there,  and  two  weeks  each  way  on  the  water. 

You'd  come  back  in  the  fall  fit  as  a  fiddle." 

271 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

The  man  left,  bearing  David's  promise  to  think  it 
over.  David  did  think  it  over.  There  was  no 
work  that  afternoon.  He  went  down  to  the  river 
and  watched  a  liner  pull  out  from  her  dock  and 
drop  down-stream,  with  her  flags  flying  and  her  rail 
crowded  with  people.  And  when  he  looked  at  the 
lugubrious  throng  of  friends  on  the  wharf  who  waved 
their  handkerchiefs  at  the  departing  craft,  he  felt  as 
if  he  too  had  bade  farewell  to  a  lifelong  friend.  The 
picture  of  the  boat  was  engraved  upon  his  mind. 
It  seemed  as  if  he  absolutely  must  go. 

In  the  evening  he  walked  a  long  way  and  tried  to 
think  it  out.  He  knew  and  had  known  from  the 
instant  the  scheme  was  first  proposed  that  if  he  left 
his  post  now  he  left  it  forever.  He  did  not  try  to 
gloss  over  the  fact  that  if  he  left  he  would  acknowl- 
edge himself  beaten.  It  was  a  discussion  pure  and 
simple  between  desire  and  conscience.  His  desire 
tried  to  convince  him  that  if  he  stuck  to  his  work  in 
his  present  frame  of  mind  he  might  just  as  well  not 
work  at  all  for  all  the  good  he  would  accomplish. 
It  tried  to  convince  him  as  it  had  convinced  him  a 
thousand  times  before  that  he  needed  change.  And 
he  had  been  so  accustomed  to  giving  in  to  it  that  he 

hardly  knew  how  to  combat  it.     But  all  the  while  a 

272 


THE  HIGH  MOUNTAIN 

small  voice  which  he  supposed  was  conscience  kept 
just  within  view  the  fact  that  he  was  working  to  ac- 
complish something. 

He  let  his  mind  go  back  over  his  struggles  during 
the  past  year — first  of  all  the  determination  to  start 
out  to  succeed ;  the  long,  hot  days  trying  to  get  a 
foothold ;  the  fight  to  keep  himself  in  trim  to  hang 
on  to  the  advantage  he  had  already  gained.  Those 
things  represented  the  hard  battles  in  a  life  that  was 
not  accustomed  to  battles.  Should  he  acknowledge 
himself  beaten  ? 

Beaten !  He  who  had  entered  the  arena  with  the 
confidence  of  a  veteran ;  who  would  not  stoop  to 
make  promises  of  success,  because  he  had  been  so 
certain  he  would  succeed.  Would  he  set  aside  his 
hope  of  success  in  favor  of  a  mere  craving  for  new 
adventures  and  new  places  on  the  earth  ? 

He  stopped  where  he  was  on  the  sidewalk.  It 
seemed  suddenly  as  if  all  the  discussion  had  been 
going  on  in  some  other  mind  than  his  own.  It  had 
no  place  in  his.  He  must  get  rid  of  it — cleanse  his 
soul  of  the  idea. 

"  I'll  stay  here  and  sit  in  my  studio,"  he  exclaimed, 
"  if  I  don't  do  a  stroke  of  work  between  now  and 
Christmas." 

273 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

There  was  a  store  at  the  corner.  He  rushed  in 
and  shut  himself  in  the  telephone  booth  there.  By- 
standers probably  thought  he  needed  first  aid  for  the 
injured ;  and  he  did.  He  finally  got  his  friend  of  the 
afternoon  on  the  wire. 

"  Hello,"  he  said.  "  This  is  Bruce.  I  can't  go  on 
that  expedition  you  spoke  of." 


274 


CHAPTER  XXV 

THE  GIFTS  OF  GODS 

ABOUT  this  time  the  magazine  began  publish- 
ing the  serial  for  which  David  had  made  his 
first  illustrations.  That  gave  him  a  new  lease  of  life. 
The  pictures  made  quite  a  little  sensation  and  he  be- 
gan to  get  letters  about  them — letters  in  commenda- 
tion, letters  criticizing  them  and  letters  asking  his 
prices  for  doing  more.  He  felt  now  as  if  the  life  he 
had  claimed  was  beginning  to  claim  him ;  and  that 
fact  was  a  bigger  tie  to  his  work  than  he  had  ever 
supposed  would  be  given  him. 

He  wondered  if  Margaret  would  see  the  magazine. 
There  were  so  many  magazines  that  it  was  only  by 
chance  she  might  see  it;  and  if  she  did  and  were 
not  looking  for  his  name,  she  would  doubtless  not 
know  that  he  had  done  the  pictures.  Sometimes 
he  had  an  impulse  to  send  her  a  copy  of  it,  but 
he  knew  that  it  was  not  such  a  great  achievement 
he  had  made  after  all,  and  that  it  would  be  best  to 

wait 

275 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

One  day  he  was  returning  from  New  York  and, 
getting  off  the  train  at  the  station,  an  impulse  seized 
him,  instead  of  hastening  down  on  the  street,  to  lin- 
ger in  the  concourse  and  watch  the  multitude.  He 
saw  a  thousand  people  pass  by  him — interesting, 
uninteresting,  commonplace,  unusual,  beautiful,  ugly, 
urban,  suburban,  French,  Chinese,  fat,  fashionable, 
thin,  without  finding  a  single  face  he  had  ever  seen 
before.  But  the  face  of  the  thousandth  and  first 
person  he  had  seen  before.  The  face  was  Margaret 
York's. 

Of  course  it  does  happen  that  sometimes  when 
the  sun  is  shining  brightly  and  the  sky  is  as  blue  as 
the  sea,  a  peal  of  thunder  explodes  suddenly  over- 
head out  of  nothing  at  all.  And  it  does  sometimes 
happen  that  a  person  walking  along  in  a  crowded 
street  glances  down  and  discovers  a  string  of  pearls 
on  the  sidewalk.  But  these  circumstances  occasion 
no  more  astonishment  than  was  written  on  the  faces 
of  Margaret  and  David  as  they  met  in  that  unex- 
pected place. 

Margaret  began  to  laugh. 

"  Well,  David  !  "  she  exclaimed. 

He  caught  her  hand  in  both  of  his.     He  would 

have  taken  her  in  his  arms  if  he  had  done  what  the 

276 


THE  GIFTS  OF  GODS 

excited  heart  inside  him  wanted  to  do.  As  it  was, 
he  simply  held  the  hand — and  looked  at  her.  She 
smiled. 

"  Don't  you  talk?"  she  asked,  presently. 

"  I  had  to  see  what  you  looked  like  first."  He 
glanced  about  him.  "  Shall  we  go  in  there  and  sit 
down?" 

"Yes.     I  have  ten  minutes,"  she  said. 

"  Ten  minutes  ! " 

"I  am  taking  a  train  to  Pittsburgh.  I  got  in 
about  an  hour  ago  and  have  been  to  see  a  man  for 
Mr.  Bundy.  I  am  bound  West  now  to  see  another 
man  for  myself." 

"  A  man  for  yourself,"  he  repeated,  smiling.  "  I 
hope  he  suits  you." 

"  Don't  be  foolish.  I  wouldn't  go  all  the  way  to 
Pittsburgh  for  that." 

"  Especially  after  what  you  have  found  here,"  he 
suggested. 

"And  I  had  to  come  a  fairly  long  way  to  see 
him,"  she  said. 

There  was  something  inquiring  in  her  tone.  He 
wanted  to  tell  her  then  just  what  he  was  doing,  but 
as  yet  he  had  really  accomplished  nothing.  And 
the  recent  occasion  when  he  had  nearly  succumbed 

277 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

to  temptation  and  given  up  was  still  a  sore  point. 
So  he  thought  it  best  not  to  lay  claim  to  virtue  just 
yet. 

"  How  is  your  turpentine  coming  on  ? "  he  asked, 
in  a  moment. 

When  he  glanced  up  he  caught  a  look  of  interest 
on  her  face  that  faded  as  he  asked  the  question — as  if 
she  had  expected  that  he  would  say  something  about 
his  work. 

"  It  is  coming  on  very  well,"  she  replied.  "  We 
are  selling  all  of  it  we  can  make,  and  people  are 
using  it  just  as  if  it  were  real  turpentine.  In  fact, 
the  demand  is  getting  far  beyond  our  powers  of 
production." 

"  Can't  you  make  some  one  lend  you  money  to 
build  a  whopping  big  factory  ?  " 

"  That  is  just  what  I  am  going  to  Pittsburgh  for. 
There  is  a  man  out  there  named  Kimball  who  is 
loaded  down  with  money.  He  saw  the  factory  at 
Bay  City  and  wrote  me  a  letter  about  it." 

They  walked  out  to  the  train  together. 

"  Are  you  happy  ?  "  she  asked. 

"Yes." 

"  You  have  become  so  used  to  being  away  from 

home,"  she  said,  "  you  do  not  get  homesick." 

278 


THE  GIFTS  OF  GODS 

"  Never  until  this  last  year,"  he  replied. 

He  was  anxious  not  to  miss  a  minute  of  her.  He 
went  aboard  the  train  and  stayed  until  the  cars 
began  to  move. 

"Good-bye,"  he  said,  then,  holding  her  hand 
tightly. 

She  looked  up  into  his  eyes. 

"  I  have  missed  you,"  she  said. 

He  stared  down  at  her.  The  train  was  moving. 
If  he  could  only  have  stopped  it,  held  it  where  it 
was,  made  it  give  him  one  more  minute  of  her. 
But  its  wheels  were  turning  and  the  platform  beside 
it  was  slipping  by.  It  would  not  even  split  a  second 
and  give  him  the  half  of  it.  He  hurried  away,  the 
words  still  sounding  in  his  ears. 

They  sounded  in  his  ears  long  after  he  had 
stepped  off  the  swiftly  moving  train  and  made  his 
way,  unseeing,  down  the  long  platform,  through  the 
crowds  of  people  and  out  upon  the  street. 

He  found  himself  after  a  while  at  his  studio,  not 
quite  certain  by  what  route  he  had  reached  it.  He 
found  on  his  table  a  letter — a  letter  from  a  very  im- 
portant magazine.  He  read  it  through.  Then  he 
sat  down  and  read  it  through  again,  his  eyes  bright 

with  wonder. 

279 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Well,"  he  admitted  at  length,  "  I  guess  it's  true, 
or  they  wouldn't  have  signed  it." 
In  part  the  letter  read  as  follows  : 

"  We  have  been  very  much  pleased  with 
the  last  work  you  have  done  for  us — so 
much  so  that  we  have  decided  to  give  you 
a  large  commission.  We  have  a  serial 
story  for  which  we  will  need  illustrations  in 
color.  We  think  you  are  just  the  man  to 
do  them  provided  you  can  do  them  quickly. 
Please  let  us  know  if  six  weeks  is  sufficient 
time.  There  are  to  be  ten  illustrations  and 
we  will  pay  you  one  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars apiece  for  them." 

He  continued  to  stare  at  the  letter. 

"  If  I  had  known  I  was  going  to  get  that,"  he 
said,  "  I  would  have  asked  her  how  much  she 
missed  me." 


280 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE  CHILD 

FOR  four  weeks  David  worked  at  top  speed  on 
his  ten  pictures.  They  were  all  outdoor  pic- 
tures— to  be  full  of  the  spirit  of  the  sea  and  sky,  to 
breathe  salt  air,  to  be  whipped  across  by  ocean 
breezes.  And  at  the  end  of  the  four  weeks  when 
the  pictures  were  drawn  and  he  was  blocking  them 
out  with  the  first  washes  of  color,  he  began  to  see 
that  he  had  no  feeling  of  sea  and  sky  and  great 
spaces  in  his  tiny  shut  in  studio.  It  cramped  him, 
as  if  he  were  trying  to  draw  and  there  was  not  room 
for  his  elbow. 

He  knew  that  he  must  get  away.  And  when  he 
learned  that  the  spring  rising  of  the  river — of  short 
duration  this  year — had  already  swept  over  his 
island  and  subsided  again,  he  wrote  down  to  have 
his  portable  house  set  up  upon  it,  and  made  ar- 
rangements to  go  there  immediately  with  his  pic- 
tures and  paraphernalia  with  the  idea  of  finishing 
them  there.  This  decision  made,  he  was  happy 

and  excited  as  a  boy.     He  sat  down  and  wrote  a 

281 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

letter  to  Margaret  telling  her  that  he  was  coming  to 
his  island  and  would  see  her  on  his  way.  As  he 
wrote  it  he  felt  with  a  sense  of  satisfaction  that  he 
had  earned  his  right  to  see  her. 

"  Are  you  glad  ?  "  asked  Dora,  when  Margaret  had 
told  her  of  the  contents  of  the  letter. 

"  I  am  afraid  I  am.  But  it  is  a  responsibility. 
There  are  so  few  places  in  this  life  in  which  you 
can  do  just  as  you  want  to  without  thinking  of  the 
consequences.  And  I  am  thinking  always  of  the 
consequences  of  my  liking  David  too  well." 

She  poked  the  letter  into  a  pigeonhole  of  her  desk. 

"  And  loving  a  man  would  not  be  the  wholly  sen- 
timental affair  with  me  that  it  is  with  a  girl  just  out 
of  high  school.  It  would  be  the  choosing  between 
two  careers.  Now  I  am  happy  in  my  present  life,  but 
if  I  should  find  that  I  need  David,  then  I  am  going 
to  take  it  for  granted  that  that  means  I  need  to  keep 
David's  house  and  that  I  need  to  " — she  hesitated — 
"  to  care  for  David's  children." 

She  looked  at  Dora  defiantly. 

"  I  don't  lay  that  down  as  a  rule  for  other  people 
in  my  position.  But  that  is  what  I  want.  Should  I 
have  children,  I  should  want  to  devote  my  life  to 

making  them  well  and  strong — and  happy." 

282 


THE  CHILD 

"  I  understand,"  said  Dora. 

"  But  don't  you  see  that  I  would  have  to  be  very 
sure  that  I  wanted  David  beyond  a  shadow  of  a 
doubt,  to  be  willing  to  give  up  my  present  career — 
which  I  have  made  for  myself  by  my  own  efforts — and 
take  him  and  his,  blindly,  for  better  or  for  worse." 

"  With  the  chances  in  favor  of  the  worse." 

"  Yes,  but  if  I  loved  him,  and  he  wanted  me,"  she 
said,  "  I  would  take  him  no  matter  what  the  chances 
were. 

"  Do  you  know,"  she  went  on,  "  I  could  tell  you  a 
surprising  thing.  You  and  I  are  rather  smugly 
satisfied  that  we  have  succeeded  in  a  financial  way, 
and  frown  down  upon  David  because  he  has  not. 
But  he  has  a  clearer  grasp  of  the  situation  than  we 
have.  I  go  on  accumulating  without  having  decided 
whether  that  is  absolutely  the  best  thing  I  can  do 
with  my  life.  David  decides  that  hunting  the  al- 
mighty dollar  for  the  sake  of  the  dollar  is  wrong,  and 
in  the  face  of  the  criticism  of  all  his  friends  attempts 
to  find  out  what  he  was  put  upon  the  world  to  do — 
and  then  to  go  out  and  do  it" 

They  were  driving  along  a  crowded  down-town 
street,  whose  sidewalks  were  lined  with  all  the  bright 
colors  incident  to  the  dressmaking  and  millinery  of 

283 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

a  late  spring  day.  Theoretically  civilization  had 
taught  this  throng  to  attire  itself  quietly  and  incon- 
spicuously ;  but  the  intoxicating  excitement  of  put- 
ting on  clothes  had  drawn  them  away  from  mere 
theory  and  led  them  to  strive  onwards  and  upwards 
into  higher  keys.  No  soft  low  color  tones  in  this 
gathering — rather  pigments  fresh  from  the  tube.  It 
was  a  living  impressionist  picture.  A  decorative 
young  woman  strolled  by,  her  coat  a  shade  obtained 
by  steeping  the  fabric  for  months  in  crushed  straw- 
berries. It  was  a  striking  contrast  to  the  white  skirt 
and  dragged  one's  unresisting  eye  toward  it.  Too 
much  like  a  magazine  cover,  indeed  !  But  magazine 
covers  and  young  girls  must  be  looked  at,  else  what 
would  be  the  use  of  having  either  of  those  articles  ? 

But  Margaret  glanced  only  casually  at  the  color 
schemes  drifting  by  and  saw  with  unspeculative  eye 
the  bright  yellows,  the  startling  pinks  and  the  vi- 
brating greens.  She  was  thinking  of  other  things. 
And  then  suddenly  a  look  of  very  violent  interest 
came  into  her  eyes.  It  was  a  girl  all  dressed  in 
white  that  she  saw,  with  tiny  old  rose  ribbons  at  her 
wrists  and  neck  and  wide  old  rose  cap-strings  tied 
under  her  chin.  The  tops  of  her  short  stockings 

were    adorned   by  narrow   pink   bands  and   small 

284 


THE  CHILD 

patent-leather  pumps  shone  as  they  moved  in  short 
steps  over  the  pavement.  Amid  the  spectroscope  on 
the  sidewalk  this  person  was  the  most  conspicuous, 
to  Margaret.  She  clutched  Dora  by  the  arm,  start- 
ling that  lady  so  much  that  she  almost  ran  her 
machine  into  the  sidewalk. 

"  Look,"  she  cried,  with  a  fervor  scarcely  com- 
mensurate with  the  occasion,  "  the  Sawyers." 

Dora,  whose  mind  when  driving  was  never  quite 
free  from  the  thought  of  the  host  of  near-sighted  old 
ladies  at  street-corners,  whose  lives  she  held  in  the 
hollow  of  her  hand,  applied  the  brakes  so  that  the 
automobile  went  through  the  preliminary  motions 
of  turning  a  somersault,  and  then  stopped  exhausted 
by  the  sidewalk.  The  child  turned  round  wide  eyes 
toward  it. 

"  Oh,  mother,  see  the  naughty  automobile." 

The  mother  turned  with  a  reproof  upon  her  lips 
but  did  not  utter  it,  for  she  beheld  her  offspring 
raised  bodily  from  the  ground  by  an  attractive  and 
very  well  dressed  girl.  The  child's  mind  moved 
quicker  than  the  mother's. 

"  Aunt  Mardret,"  she  exclaimed. 

"  Of  course  it's  Aunt  Mardret,"  that  person  re- 
plied, and,  kissing  the  child  upon  the  very  tip  of  her 

285 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

nose  by  way  of  humorous  addition  to  the  remark, 
set  her  down  again  upon  the  pavement,  so  that  she 
might  speak  to  her  mother. 

"Think  of  seeing  you  by  chance  this  way,"  was 
Elsie  Sawyer's  surprised  comment. 

"  You  were  just  about  to  say  '  What  a  small  place 
the  world  is.'  Now  I  have  said  it  for  you,"  Mar- 
garet observed. 

Margaret  presented  Dora,  and  Dora  persuaded 
Elsie  and  the  child  to  get  in  the  machine  and  be 
taken  to  wherever  they  were  going.  But  they  had 
been  everywhere  they  had  intended  going.  They 
were  en  route  for  the  seashore  and  had  missed  their 
train.  They  had  four  hours  to  wait  in  the  city  for 
another  one. 

When  Dora  and  Margaret  heard  this  they  felt  that 
it  was  a  propitious  time  to  declare  a  holiday  for  the 
afternoon.  Dora  drove  home — and  the  little  chubby 
hand  of  the  child  held  her  arm  tightly  as  she  drove. 
That  warm  clasp  brought  a  gentle  smile  to  her  lips, 
and  to  her  eyes  a  light  of  joy  and  pride,  as  if  she 
were  imagining  that  the  chubby  hand  and  the  chubby 
girl  belonged  actually  to  her.  Presently  the  little 
bonneted  head  dropped  sideways  against  her  arm 

and  the  heavy  eyelids  closed  automatically. 

286 


THE  CHILD 

"  Long  past  nap  time,"  observed  the  mother, 
treating  the  occurrence  in  a  matter-of-fact  way  as  if 
it  were  of  no  consequence  at  all.  But  Dora  drove 
very  slowly  and  carefully,  risking  the  lives  of  hun- 
dreds of  innocent  pedestrians,  because  she  would 
not  ring  the  bell  for  fear  of  rousing  the  child. 
Margaret,  sitting  on  the  floor  by  Mrs.  Sawyer's 
feet,  watched  the  little  scene  intently,  with  a  feeling 
almost  of  jealousy  that  the  small  curly  head  was 
resting  against  Dora's  arm  and  not  against  her  own. 
What  jest  of  Nature's  was  it  to  put  mothers'  hearts 
in  these  women  whose  lives  had  to  do  with  the 
market-place  and  the  money-changers  ? 

At  the  house  Margaret  and  Dora  were  permitted 
to  undress  the  inert  little  bundle  and  put  it  to  bed  in 
Margaret's  own  room.  The  windows  were  raised  to 
a  carefully  adjudged  point,  to  let  in  what  seemed  to 
be  the  proper  amount  of  air,  the  shades  were  drawn 
to  another  carefully  adjudged  point  to  exclude  the 
exactly  proper  amount  of  healthful  yet  sleep-disturb- 
ing sunshine,  chairs  were  placed  by  the  side  of  the 
wide  bed  to  forestall  a  tendency  to  fall  from  its  dizzy 
height — all  by  these  amateur  hands  intrusted  with 
heavy  responsibility.  They  stood  by  the  bedside 

and  gazed  at  the  shock  of  yellow  curls  upon  the 

287 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

pillow,  and  the  small — oh,  so  small — head  making 
but  a  tiny  spot  in  the  midst  of  the  great  area  of  the 
coverlet  of  the  big,  grown-up  bed.  They  stole  on 
tiptoe  from  the  room  and  closed  the  door  gently  be- 
hind them. 

As  they  turned  to  descend  the  stairs,  their  eyes 
met.  Dora  paused,  her  hand  grasping  the  newel- 
post  behind  her. 

"That  is  the  sort  of  thing,"  she  said,  slowly, 
"  that  I  missed — a  long  while  ago." 

Margaret  nodded.  The  child  had  brought  to 
light  in  each  of  them  a  primitive  element — as 
though  somehow  they  had  harked  back  to  a  previ- 
ous life.  It  was  the  instinct  to  possess,  to  protect, 
and  to  rear  to  manhood  an  infant  of  their  species — 
an  instinct  always  present  but  often  smothered  by 
the  multiplicity  of  other  calls  made  by  the  com- 
plicated and  diverse  civilization  that  surrounds  us. 

"  I  have  talked  about  your  career  many  times," 
Dora  went  on.  "  Perhaps  that  is  because  I  am  al- 
ways trying  to  convince  myself  that  my  career  and 
the  achievement  of  my  personal  ambition  is  the 
most  important  thing  for  me.  But — whatever  you 
do,  don't  deliberately  miss — that — as  I  did." 


288 


CHAPTER  XXVII 
A  GRACEFUL  EXIT 

"T^VANS,"  asked  Mr.  Bundy  one  day,  "how 
•*— '  much  damage  did  the  freshet  do  at  your 
factory  ?  " 

Evans  seated  himself  by  Bundy 's  desk. 

"  None  at  all.  The  water  was  so  low  it  hardly 
came  over  the  banks.  But  I  shouldn't  be  surprised 
if  we  had  another  one  as  soon  as  it  rains  again." 

"  I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing,"  observed  Mar- 
garet. "If  I  thought  there  was  a  chance  of  it,  I 
wouldn't  put  in  that  new  crop  of  the  turpentine 
plant." 

"  I'm  only  guessing,"  returned  Evans.  "  I  wish 
you  had  the  capital,"  he  added  in  a  moment,  "to 
plant  the  whole  fifty  acres  in  it." 

"She  will  have  before  the  summer's  over,"  ex- 
claimed Bundy.  "  I'll  bet  she  gets  Kimball  to  put 
his  money  in  it." 

"  I  wish  I  were  sure  of  it,"  observed  Margaret. 

"  So  do  I,"  Evans  exclaimed. 

He  rose  and  strode  up  and  down  the  floor. 
289 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"If  we  don't,"  he  went  on,  "the  Waring  Com- 
pany will  drive  us  out." 

"You're  pessimistic  to-day,"  said  she.  But  she 
looked  at  him  keenly.  Evans  stopped  beside  her 
desk. 

"  Potter,"  he  said,  "  has  had  his  eye  on  that  tur- 
pentine ever  since  the  day  you  bought  the  rights." 

"  Oh,  no,"  replied  Margaret,  smiling,  "  he  didn't 
know  about  it  until  nearly  a  week  afterward." 

Evans  shook  his  head. 

"  Let  me  tell  you  something.  I  found  out  yester- 
day that  the  very  day  you  bought  the  rights,  a 
man  Potter  sent  down  to  Bay  City  to  look  over  the 
factory  discovered  that  old  Venn  was  making  this 
turpentine  substitute,  and  tried  to  buy  the  rights 
from  Groh  that  very  evening.  But  you  were  ahead 
of  him." 

"I  remember  Venn  saying  the  man  had  been 
there,"  remarked  Margaret,  thoughtfully.  "  Why," 
she  added,  suddenly,  "  Potter  must  have  known  the 
next  day  all  about  it." 

"He  did.  The  man  came  up  on  the  afternoon 
train  and  told  him." 

Margaret  dipped  her  pen  in  the  ink  and  scribbled 

idly  on  her  pad. 

290 


A  GRACEFUL  EXIT 

"  That  train  gets  in  at  four,"  she  said.  "  And 
Potter  called  me  up  about  five  o'clock — I  remember 
I  had  my  hat  on  ready  to  leave." 

She  stopped  abruptly,  her  pen  poised  in  the  air. 

"  Why,  he  came  to  see  me  that  very  night  and — 
and " 

The  color  deepened  in  her  face. 

"  No  matter,"  she  remarked,  quickly.  "  What 
leads  you  to  believe  Mr.  Potter  has  '  his  eye  on  our 
turpentine '  ?  "  she  added. 

Evans  looked  at  her  curiously. 

"  He  has  begun  to  fight  me,  as  you  know.  He 
has  sent  you  a  sample  of  an  enamel  finish  with  which 
he  means  to  rival  mine." 

"  And  charges  only  about  two- thirds  as  much  for 
it,"  said  Bundy. 

"  That's  it  exactly.  It  was  made  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  driving  me  off  the  market.  And  as 
they  have  about  a  thousand  times  as  much  money 
as  I  have,  they  can  keep  on  underselling  me  until  I 
am  bankrupt." 

Bundy  bit  his  mustache. 

"  But  that  looks  more  as  though  they  had  their 
eye  on  your  product,"  he  said,  "  than  on  the  turpen- 
tine." 

291 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  They  are  coining  at  me  first  because  my  stuff  is 
hurting  their  business,  and  they  mean  simply  to 
eliminate  it.  And  I  believe  Potter  figures  that  if 
one  product  made  in  the  factory  fails,  no  one  will 
want  to  put  money  in  the  other." 

Margaret  nodded. 

"  And  then,"  continued  Evans,  "  he  will  come 
along  in  a  friend-of-the-family  way  and  offer,  since 
no  one  else  will  let  you  have  money,  to  finance  the 
operation  himself, — and  dictate  his  own  terms." 

Bundy  stroked  the  back  of  his  head. 

"  I  think  he's  a  rascal,"  he  said,  after  a  little  con- 
sideration. 

"  Oh,  no,"  replied  Margaret,  "  that's  just  his  idea 
of  business.  But  very  soon  now  we'll  have  our 
money,  I  hope,  and  we  can  snap  our  fingers  at  him." 

Evans  rose  to  go. 

"  Did  you  make  an  analysis  of  this  paint  that  the 
Waring  Company  is  using  to  undersell  you  ?  "  asked 
Bundy. 

"  Yes.  I  put  it  there  on  your  desk."  He  turned 
to  Margaret.  "  But  even  if  you  get  money,  it  will 
not  help  me,  will  it  ?  " 

"  If  I  get  the  money,"  she  replied,  "  I  will  leave 

you  no  room  for  complaint." 

292 


A  GRACEFUL  EXIT 

Practically  the  only  prospect  she  had  of  getting 
the  money  to  manufacture  her  turpentine  on  a  large 
scale  was  William  Kimball.  When  she  had  seen 
him  in  Pittsburgh  he  had  been  most  optimistic  about 
her  discovery  and  seemed  to  be  very  favorably  in- 
clined toward  it.  She  had  recently  sent  him  some 
samples  of  the  product  which  he  wanted  to  turn  over 
to  chemists  and  others  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining 
expert  opinions.  She  did  not  see  how  the  opinions 
could  be  unfavorable,  and  yet  she  was  anxious  about 
them.  She  knew  that  she  would  not  feel  confident 
about  it  until  Mr.  Kimball  had  actually  consented  to 
advance  the  money. 

The  Waring  Company  had  made  her  one  offer  of 
financial  aid.  But  as  this  offer  included  the  stipula- 
tion that  the  Waring  Company  was  to  have  the  con- 
trolling interest,  and  was  to  buy  all  the  turpentine 
they  themselves  used  at  cost,  she  felt  that  it  eliminated 
her ;  so  she  had  declined.  She  found  out  afterward 
that  the  offer  had  not  been  made  until  the  Waring 
Company  had  themselves  tried  to  make  the  turpen- 
tine substitute,  and  failed.  They  had  obtained  some 
of  the  seed  for  the  plant,  and  had  tried  to  raise  it. 
But  they  had  planted  it  at  the  wrong  season  of  the 
year,  and  in  the  wrong  kind  of  soil.  They  had  no 

293 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

notion  as  to  when  it  should  be  cut,  or  how  it  should 
be  handled  after  cutting.  These  and  a  hundred 
other  things  were  secrets  discovered  by  old  Venn 
after  many  years  of  experiment,  and  known  now  only 
by  him.  It  was  not  surprising,  therefore,  that  the 
Waring  Company  had  failed  to  get  an  oil  resembling 
turpentine. 

Late  in  the  afternoon  a  familiar  automobile  drove 
up  before  the  office  of  Bundy  and  Son,  and  a  familiar 
figure,  thoroughly  groomed,  so  that  not  a  fold  in  his 
suit  hung  wrong  and  not  a  hair  of  his  head  lay 
amiss,  alighted  from  it.  It  was  Mr.  Potter,  a  trifle 
more  rounded  and  heavy  than  a  year  ago  and  a  lit- 
tle more  florid  of  face,  but  very  distinguished. 

He  entered  the  private  office  with  customary  as- 
surance and  with  perfect  finish  and  grace  greeted 
Margaret  and  Mr.  Bundy.  It  was  an  education  to 
watch  him.  He  never  knew  a  moment  of  hesitation. 
There  seemed  to  be  no  lever  one  could  touch  that 
would  throw  him  out  of  poise. 

Mr.  Bundy  smoothed  the  already  smooth  hair  at 
the  back  of  his  head  with  an  air  of  uneasiness. 

"  Sit  down,"  he  said,  without  looking  at  the  vis- 
itor, "  sit  down." 

Mr.  Potter  sat  down. 

294 


IT    OUGHT    TO    BE    MORE    COSTLY 


A  GRACEFUL  EXIT 

"  Did  you  get  a  sample  of  our  new  enamel  finish?" 
he  asked  presently. 

Bundy  drummed  nervously  on  the  arm  of  the 
chair. 

"  Why,  yes,"  he  replied. 

"  I  came  down  here,"  Potter  said,  "  to  offer  you 
some  very  special  rates.  In  order  to  make  it  worth 
your  while  to  introduce  it  among  your  customers, 
we  are  willing  to  let  you  have  it  at  fifteen  cents  less 
per  gallon  than  the  price  we  quoted  you." 

"This  is  a  product  similar  to  the  one  Evans  is 
manufacturing,  isn't  it?"  asked  Bundy,  drawing 
parallel  lines  on  his  blotter. 

"  Why,  yes,  I  think  it  is.  Discovered  about  the 
same  time.  Only  his  seems  to  be  more  costly." 
Potter  said  this  in  a  satisfied  tone  of  superiority. 

Two  little  pink  spots  appeared  on  Mr.  Bundy's 
cheeks.  Margaret  had  never  seen  him  angry  before. 

"  It  ought  to  be  more  costly,"  he  asserted. 

"  Why  ?  "  shot  out  Potter. 

Bundy  fumbled,  with  clumsy  fingers,  among  the 
papers  on  his  desk  and  at  length  drew  out  the  paper 
Evans  had  given  him. 

"  Here  is  an  analysis  of  your  paint,"  he  exclaimed, 

trying  to  be  very  calm  and  failing  to  produce  any 

295 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

effect  but  that  of  great  excitement.  "  By  that  it  ap- 
pears that  the  price  you  now  offer  us  is  less  than  the 
cost  of  the  material  you  put  in  it." 

Bundy  pushed  the  piece  of  paper  away  from  him 
with  an  injured  air. 

Margaret  looked  at  Potter  to  see  how  he  would 
take  this  astounding  statement.  But  their  visitor 
merely  smiled  and  waved  his  hand. 

"  Of  course  you  must  understand,"  he  observed, 
easily,  "  that  with  a  large  organization  like  ours  we 
can  do  many  things  that  would  be  suicide  for  the 
average  firm.  With  our  facilities  for  getting  special 
prices,  etc. " 

Mr.  Bundy  rose.  His  face  was  very  red  and  his 
neck  seemed  to  have  suddenly  become  too  large  for 
his  collar. 

"  Do  you  think  I  am  a  child  ? "  he  shouted,  in 
his  thin  voice.  "  Special  prices !  You  buy  at  the 
market.  I  know  that.  I  haven't  been  in  this  busi- 
ness for  twenty-five  years  not  to  know  what  you 
have  to  pay  for  things.  You  are  selling  this  inferior 
product  of  yours  below  cost  to  drive  Evans  out  of 
business.  You  know  you  are  !  And  if  you  say  you 
are  not,"  he  cried  in  an  awkward  burst  of  indigna- 
tion, "  you  lie." 

296 


A  GRACEFUL  EXIT 

He  glared  at  Potter  like  a  little  terrier  bullying 
a  mastiff.  Margaret  gazed  at  him  in  amazement. 
And  then  somewhat  aghast  at  himself,  he  burst  out 
of  the  room. 

A  look  of  blank  incredulity  rested  on  Potter's  face. 
He  looked  at  Mr.  Bundy's  chair  as  if  he  did  not 
quite  realize  that  the  man  was  no  longer  there. 
Then  at  length  he  turned  to  Margaret,  an  explana- 
tion upon  his  lips. 

But  Margaret  merely  laughed. 

The  ridiculousness  of  the  scene  dawned  upon 
him.  Bundy  had  taken  him  so  much  by  surprise 
that  for  once  in  his  life  he  had  been  left  speechless, 
and  now  when  words  came,  there  was  no  one  to  say 
them  to.  Margaret  had  assumed  the  r61e  of  a  mere 
interested  spectator. 

But  there  was  no  way  of  throwing  down  his  poise. 
He  rose  with  dignity,  his  face  a  shade  more  crimson, 
but  otherwise  unruffled,  and  strode  out  of  the  office 
with  an  air  that  would  have  done  credit  to  a  Grand 
Duke. 

But  the  bitter  gall  was  in  his  mouth.  In  a  mo- 
ment of  error  he  had  let  her  see  behind  the  curtain 
of  his  soul.  And  when  she  had  laughed,  he  knew 

the  illusion  was  gone. 

297 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

FEVER-HEAT 

MARGARET  was  beginning  to  find  out  now 
that  the  decison  Mr.  Kimball  would  make 
either  in  favor  or  against  financing  her  enterprise 
was  assuming  the  proportions  of  a  crisis  in  her  life. 
If  he  agreed  to  furnish  the  capital,  she  would  then 
have  carried  her  career  to  a  height  of  success  of 
which  she  had  never  dreamed  in  her  earlier  days. 
She  scarcely  dared  even  to  think  of  it,  so  dazzling 
was  the  prospect.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  declined 
to  furnish  it,  he  would  automatically  put  a  barrier  in 
her  path  that  would  take  many  a  day  to  surmount 
For  the  very  fact  that  so  shrewd  a  man  as  Kimball 
had  taken  the  prospect  under  consideration  and  had 
decided  against  it,  would  be  a  red  flag  of  warning  to 
other  investors. 

Her  first  mood  of  confidence  had  changed  to  one 
of  disturbed  uncertainty.  She  was  an  accused  per- 
son awaiting  the  verdict  of  the  jury.  Every  yellow 

telegram  that  came  into  the  office  of  Bundy  and  Son 

298 


FEVER-HEAT 

sent  waves  of  excitement  through  her  until  she  knew 
its  contents.  Every  long-distance  telephone  call 
aroused  in  her  a  breathless  interest  until  she  found 
that  it  was  not  for  her.  The  pile  of  mail  in  the 
morning  and  again  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon 
had  a  diabolic  magnetism  for  her.  She  could  not 
rest  until  she  had  run  through  it,  looking  for  the 
envelope  with  the  familiar  mark  upon  it. 

But  there  was  no  word.  Telegrams  came,  long- 
distance messages  punctuated  the  business  of  the 
day,  bushels  of  letters  were  opened,  discussed, 
worried  over,  answered,  and  filed.  But  among  them 
was  no  sign  that  William  Kimball  of  Pittsburgh  was 
alive. 

She  wrote  him  letters — one  almost  every  day — 
but  she  did  not  send  them.  Their  final  destination 
was  the  bottom  of  her  waste-basket.  Sometimes 
she  felt  that  a  telegram  might  be  the  right  medium 
through  which  to  extract  information  from  him. 
But  when  she  had  the  message  written  it  seemed 
too  anxious  in  its  tone.  And  no  matter  how  anx- 
ious she  was,  he  must  not  know  it.  He  must  be 
led  to  consider  her  in  the  entirely  fictitious  r61e  of 
a  light-hearted,  undisturbed  lady  who  would  like 

to  have  him  invest  his  money  in  her  enterprise,  but 

299 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

did  not  consider  it  at  all  paramount  that  he  should 
do  so. 

Eventually,  of  course,  word  must  come  from  the 
man.  He  could  not  go  on  being  William  the 
Silent  forever.  The  day  on  which  that  word  did 
come  at  last  was  the  very  one  following  Potter's 
visit  to  the  office.  The  telephone,  which  had  borne 
to  the  office  so  many  far-away  voices  that  had  no 
news  of  great  import  to  tell,  this  time  bore  the  voice 
of  William  Kimball.  And  Margaret  herself  was  at 
Bay  City. 

Bundy  was  wild  with  anxiety.  Kimball  wanted 
to  talk  to  Margaret  herself  and  would  leave  no 
message.  Bundy  tried  to  explain  where  she  was, 
but  was  so  disturbed  by  the  importance  of  the  oc- 
casion that  it  is  doubtful  if  this  conversation  was 
entirely  intelligible.  However,  he  managed  to  ex- 
plain that  he  would  try  to  get  a  message  to  her  and 
have  her  call  him. 

But  the  message  was  ill-fated.  It  came  to  the 
factory  at  Bay  City  after  she  had  gone.  She  was 
then  on  the  train.  It  would  be  three  hours  before 
she  would  be  back  in  the  office.  She  had  waited 
many  weeks  for  the  news — she  must  wait  three 
hours  longer. 

300 


FEVER-HEAT 

The  three  hours  proved  to  be  just  a  little  too 
long.  When  she  arrived  at  the  office  and  tried 
to  get  Mr.  Kimball  by  telephone,  he  could  not  be 
found.  She  tried  in  every  possible  way  to  discover 
him.  But  nothing  could  bring  him  to  light.  From 
all  appearances,  Pittsburgh  simply  did  not  contain 
him. 

After  an  hour  or  more  of  this,  she  found  at  length 
some  one  at  his  house  who  vouchsafed  the  informa- 
tion that  he  was  not  expected  home  until  the  follow- 
ing morning.  She  went  home  at  that,  carrying  sus- 
pended sentence  with  her.  If  she  had  been  anxious 
before,  she  was  doubly  anxious  now.  But  her  anx- 
iety was  tinged  with  vexation  that  she  should  have 
chosen  this  day,  of  all  the  days,  to  go  to  Bay  City. 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  can  be  so  calm  about  it," 
said  Dora.  "  I  shouldn't  be  able  to  sit  still." 

"  I'm  not  calm  about  it,"  Margaret  exclaimed. 
"  I  am  on  pins  and  needles." 

She  was  sitting  at  the  piano.  She  began  to  play 
softly.  It  needed  soft  and  restful  chords  to  quiet 
the  furore  of  subdued  excitement  within  her — ex- 
citement at  the  thought  that  perhaps  the  great  mo- 
ment of  her  life  was  near  at  hand — the  moment  that 
would  realize  her  dream  of  success.  Why  should 

301 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

the  excitement  not  have  been  strong  within  her? 
They  had  told  her  that  Mr.  Kimball  would  not  re- 
turn until  the  morning.  There  was  nothing  to  do 
but  to  wait,  her  soul  keyed  up  and  her  mind  in  a 
tumult  of  unrest. 

And  this  was  the  night  that  David  chose.  He 
could  not  by  any  circumstances  have  chanced  upon 
a  time  less  propitious  for  him.  In  coming,  he  pitted 
himself  against  the  fever-heat  of  the  other  side  of 
her  life.  If  there  was  ever  a  time  when  he  would 
have  been  crowded  out,  it  was  at  that  moment. 

Of  course,  he  did  not  choose  the  moment.  It 
was  the  time  the  fates  picked  out  for  him.  He 
was  on  his  way  to  his  island,  and  he  had  so  ar- 
ranged his  journey  that  he  would  be  able  to  see 
Margaret  as  he  was  passing  through  the  city. 
When  his  ring  sounded,  Margaret  turned  toward 
her  companion. 

"  That,"  she  said,  "  is  David  Bruce." 

"  How  could  it  be  ?  " 

"  He  said  he  was  coming  soon.  I  have  a  feeling 
that  this  is  he." 

The  maid  passed  through  the  hall.  Dora  lis- 
tened. 

"  You  were  right,"  she  said. 
302 


FEVER-HEAT 

But  David  sensed  no  excitement  in  the  air.  The 
reason  women  are  made  beautiful  is  so  that  you 
will  not  see  beneath  and  guess  what  they  are  think- 
ing. Margaret  rose  and  shook  hands  with  him. 
Dora  looked  at  him  keenly.  Everything  was  as 
usual.  He  did  not  feel  the  concert-pitch. 

"  You  have  grown,"  Dora  remarked,  "  since  I  saw 
you  last." 

"  I  am  still  five  feet  ten  and  weigh  a  hundred  and 
sixty  pounds,"  he  said. 

"  I  don't  mean  that  way.  I  mean  you  are  older. 
You  have  some  lines  at  the  corners  of  your  mouth. 
Perhaps  you  are  growing  up." 

He  walked  to  the  mirror  over  the  mantel  and 
looked  at  his  mouth  critically. 

"  Would  you  consider  them  a  blemish  ?  " 

"  No.     I  rather  like  them,"  she  said. 

After  a  decent  interval,  Dora  dutifully  left  Mar- 
garet with  him  and  ascended  the  stair.  Margaret, 
who  had  been  listening  rather  absently  to  the  con- 
versation between  the  other  two,  rose  from  the 
piano  stool.  He  noticed  her  high  color  and  bright 
eyes,  but  did  not  attribute  them  to  excitement. 

"  When  are  you  going  to  your  island?"  she  asked, 
quickly,  in  a  now-I-must-talk  manner. 

303 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  To-morrow." 

"  Aren't  you  afraid  that  there  will  be  another  rise 
of  the  river?" 

He  could  see  she  was  making  conversation. 

"  I  have  never  heard  of  such  a  thing,"  he  replied. 

"  Neither  have  I.  Some  one  suggested  the  pos- 
sibility yesterday,  however,  and  I  happened  to  think 
of  it  again." 

"Are  you  tired?"  he  asked. 

She  had  been  standing  by  the  mantelpiece,  staring 
at  the  hearth.  His  speech  seemed  to  make  her 
actually  aware  of  him  for  the  first  time.  She  raised 
her  eyes  to  his  and  smiled. 

"  Why,  no,"  she  replied.     "  Do  I  look  tired  ?  " 

"  I  thought  you  were  rather  absent  in  your  talk — 
as  though  you  had  something  on  your  mind." 

She  dropped  into  a  chair. 

"  It  has  been  a  trying  day.  I  have  had  so  many 
things  to  think  about.  I  think  my  brain  has  a  kink 
in  it." 

"  I  wonder  it  hasn't  a  kink  in  it  more  frequently," 
he  said. 

A  passing  electric  automobile  rang  its  bell  just 
outside  the  window.  It  sounded  unusually  loud. 
Margaret  started. 

304 


FEVER-HEAT 

"  Your  nerves  are  in  bad  shape,"  he  said,  sur- 
prised. 

"  I  thought  it  was  the  telephone." 

"  I  can  give  you  a  prescription  for  that  tired, 
nervous  feeling,"  he  remarked. 

A  light  of  mild  interest  appeared  in  her  eyes. 

"What  is  it?"  she  demanded.  " Is  it  something 
you  have  to  take  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes."  He  hesitated.  "  You  take  a  train — 
to  begin  with." 

"  I  took  one  to-day  before  lunch  and  another  be- 
fore dinner." 

"Oh,  well.  You  took  too  many  trains.  Your 
system  wasn't  able  to  assimilate  them." 

"  David,  you're  so  foolish." 

"No,  indeed,  I'm  serious.  Now,  as  I  say,  you 
are  to  take  a  train — and  stay  on  it  until  you  get  to 
Bay  City." 

"  Oh,  dear  me.     That  wouldn't  cure  me." 

"I  haven't  come  to  the  cure  yet,"  he  asserted. 
"  Upon  arriving  at  Bay  City,  you  proceed  at  once  to 
the  river.  There  you  step  into  a  canoe  and  go  due 
east." 

She  played  idly  with  the  fringe  of  the  table 
cover. 

305 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"Am  I  alone  all  this  time?  I'm  timid  about  step- 
ping into  canoes." 

"  Not  necessarily.  Some  other  fellow — the  Bruces, 
for  instance,  are  sometimes  nervous — might  also  be 
anxious  to  take  the  cure." 

"  I  am  relieved.     Go  on." 

"  You  thereupon  proceed,  as  I  say,  due  east,  and 
take  the  first  island  on  the  left." 

"  Will  my  system  readily  assimilate  an  island  ?  " 

"I  mean  select  the  island,"  he  asserted,  stiffly. 
He  paid  no  attention  to  her  smile.  "  And  upon  this 
island — it  is  really  the  only  one,  so  you  need  not  be 
afraid  of  missing  it — grow  five  tall  trees  noted  for 
their  medicinal  properties." 

"At  last,"  she  exclaimed,  "we  are  coming  to  the 
cure." 

"  Their  value,"  he  continued,  "  lies  in  their  sooth- 
ing influence  alone." 

"  But  how  about  this  companion  I  am  to  have  ?  I 
am  fussy  about  people.  If  I  didn't  like  him,  a  whole 
forest  full  of  trees  couldn't  cure  me." 

He  gave  the  matter  thought. 

"  I  don't  know  whether  you  would  like  him  or 
not,"  he  replied,  at  length.  "  But  he  would  like  you, 

if  that  would  help  the  matter  any." 

306 


FEVER-HEAT 

"That  always  helps,"  she  said.  "How  do  you 
know  he  would  like  me?" 

He  waited  until  she  glanced  up  at  him  and  looked 
squarely  into  her  eyes. 

"  Don't  you  think  he  does  ?  "  he  asked. 

She  took  off  her  ring  and  played  with  it  idly. 

"  How  should  I  know  ?  " 

"  Isn't  there  anything  inside  you  that  tells  ? " 
urged  David. 

She  pursed  her  lips  doubtfully.  But  inside  her 
something  was  beating  a  little  faster.  New  emo- 
tions were  rising  in  her.  The  sound  of  his  voice 
and  the  personal  nearness  of  him  seemed  to  take 
hold  of  her — to  push  gently  backward  the  things 
that  had  been  martialed  in  the  front  of  her  mind. 
The  excitement  of  a  while  ago  over  a  thing 
that  might  happen  was  giving  way  to  an  ex- 
citement over  something  that  actually  was  hap- 
pening. 

The  ring  she  was  playing  with  dropped  to  the 
floor.  He  rose  to  pick  it  up.  She  was  reclining 
luxuriously  in  a  leather- cushioned  Morris  chair.  He 
sat  upon  its  broad  arm  and  took  the  hand  on  which 
the  ring  belonged.  She  watched  him  curiously. 
He  held  the  hand  for  a  moment  and  then  slipped 

307 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

the  bit  of  jewelry  down  upon  her  little  finger,  where 
she  was  accustomed  to  wear  it. 

"  Thank  you,"  she  said. 

The  hand  lay  upon  his  knee. 

"  Are  you  through  with  this  ? "  she  asked,  raising 
the  fingers  of  it  and  letting  them  fall. 

"  Never,"  he  said,  in  a  low  tone. 

Her  glance  met  his  fairly.  He  saw  the  color 
deepen  presently  in  her  cheeks.  He  wanted  then  to 
loose  the  hand  he  held  and  take  her  into  his  arms. 

"  Margaret,"  he  said. 

She  knew  the  meaning  in  his  voice.  She  felt  her 
heart  throbbing.  But  she  looked  up  at  him  calmly. 

"Yes,"  she  answered  evenly. 

The  telephone  bell  rang.  She  felt  his  eyes  upon 
her.  His  hand  was  gripping  hers.  If  she  saw  any 
determination  in  him  then  to  take  her  in  his  arms, 
her  only  feeling  was  to  wish  that  he  would.  The 
telephone  bell  rang.  She  sat  up  rigidly,  realizing 
then  that  it  was  the  telephone  bell.  She  sprang  to 
her  feet,  her  hand  still  in  his. 

"  Let  me  go,"  she  whispered.  "  Please.  Please. 
It's  very  important.  It's  for  me." 

He  released  her  and  standing  up,  paced  up  and 

down  the  room.     She  ran  to  the  telephone.     All  the 

308 


FEVER-HEAT 

excitement  of  the  early  evening  returned  to  her,, 
Her  hand  trembled  as  she  held  the  receiver  to  her 
ear.  She  said  "  Hello "  and  a  voice  told  her  to 
wait. 

Dora  ran  down  the  steps.  She  glanced  at  the 
figure  sitting  motionless  at  the  telephone. 

"  It  is  a  long-distance  call,"  she  told  David,  confi- 
dently. 

David,  hardly  comprehending,  nodded  his  head. 
Margaret  said  "  Hello "  again  and  waited.  Dora 
went  closer  to  her  as  though  she  expected  to  see 
over  her  shoulder  what  was  going  on  on  the  wire. 
Presently  Margaret  said  "  Hello  "  again. 

"Yes,"  she  continued.  "This  is  Miss  York." 
There  was  a  pause.  "  Yes,  Mr.  Kimball,"  she  said. 

Dora  gasped  excitedly.  There  was  a  long  buzzing 
on  the  'phone  which  Margaret  punctuated  here 
and  there  with  a  murmured  "  yes."  At  the  end  of 
it  she  said,  "I  understand."  Another  buzzing. 
Margaret  said,  "  I  will  do  it  to-morrow."  A  short 
buzzing  followed,  and  Margaret  said  "Good-bye." 
Dora  was  wild  with  curiosity. 

"  That  was  the  most  unsatisfactory  telephone  con- 
versation I  ever  listened  to,"  she  exclaimed. 

Margaret  beamed. 

309 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  It  was  the  most  satisfactory  one  I  ever  listened 
to,"  she  said. 

The  other  woman  caught  both  her  wrists. 

"  You  don't  mean  he " 

Margaret  sank  into  a  chair. 

"  He  is  tremendously  enthusiastic  about  the  whole 
scheme.  He  says  he  does  not  think  there  is  a  doubt 
that  he  will  put  his  money  into  it.  But  he  is  anxious 
to  try  a  few  more  experiments  and  wants  me  to  send 
him  more  of  the  turpentine.  But  he  assured  me  that 
he  is  most  favorably  impressed." 

"  Bully,"  cried  Dora. 

David  sat  down  on  the  bottom  step  of  the  stair 
near  them. 

"  Is  this  your  Pittsburgh  man  ?  " 

Margaret  looked  up,  her  eyes  bright  with  excite- 
ment. 

"Yes,"  she  exclaimed. 

"  I  congratulate  you,"  he  said,  heartily.  But  he 
saw  that  the  spell,  as  far  as  he  was  concerned,  was 
broken.  Her  head  and  her  heart  were  too  full  of 
other  things.  He  rose,  with  an  assumption  of  calm- 
ness he  did  not  feel. 

"  I  know,"  he  observed,  "  how  I  should  feel  if  I 
had  gone  through  such  a  trying  day.  You  must  be 

310 


FEVER-HEAT 

dog-tired.  I  am  going  to  clear  out  and  let  Miss 
Garnet  send  you  to  bed." 

Dora  shot  him  an  approving  glance,  but  Margaret 
looked  at  him  quickly,  a  strange  light  in  her  eyes. 

"  Good-night,"  he  told  her. 

She  held  his  hand  tightly. 

"  Good-night,"  she  said. 

The  door  closed  behind  him.  She  sat  still,  gazing 
at  her  hands  clasped  before  her. 

"  You  are  a  pretty  picture  of  enthusiasm,"  re- 
marked Dora,  presently. 

Margaret  roused  herself. 

"  Who  said  anything  about  enthusiasm  ? "  she 
asked. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

TWO  weeks  passed  by.  Kimball  had  relapsed 
into  silence  again,  and  Margaret  was  en- 
deavoring to  match  his  caution  with  an  equal 
amount  of  patience.  Patience,  however,  was  an 
acquired  virtue  and  not  at  all  easy  for  her  to  main- 
tain for  a  long  period.  When  she  wanted  a  thing 
she  could  not  be  easy  in  her  mind  unless  she  were 
actively  striving  for  it.  The  delay,  therefore,  was 
trying  on  her  nerves. 

It  had  been  raining  for  two  days  now,  and  a 
melancholy  distaste  for  the  world  seemed  to  have 
seized  every  one.  The  rain  beat  upon  the  window 
panes  and  washed  down  like  waterfalls.  Visitors 
dragged  streaming  umbrellas  and  dripping  rain- 
coats through  the  outer  office  of  Bundy.  and  Son 
until  it  looked  as  if  some  one  had  been  washing 
wagons  there.  It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  after- 
noon, but  the  day  was  so  dark  that  they  were  burn- 
ing lights  to  see.  Margaret  was  tired. 

Old  Scaggs  entered,  enveloped  in  a  gloom  that 

312 


THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

seemed  to  be  an  actual  pleasure  to  him.  These 
melancholy,  graveyard  days  stimulated  his  soul  and 
fixed  more  firmly  in  his  brain  the  comforting  thought 
that  the  world  was  a  mournful  place  and  every  one 
else  just  as  low  in  spirits  as  he  was  himself. 

"  You  had  better  get  all  your  freight  off  on  that 
four  o'clock  boat,"  he  asserted,  gloomily.  "  The 
river's  rising." 

Margaret  turned  around  in  her  chair. 

"  How  do  you  know  that?"  she  asked. 

"Just  been  down  to  the  wharf.  The  water's 
about  a  foot  higher  than  it  ought  to  be  at  this 
tide." 

"  You  had  better  be  on  the  safe  side,  then.  Get 
an  extra  team,  if  you  think  it  is  necessary." 

"I  don't  see  how  there  can  be  another  high 
water,"  she  said  to  Mr.  Bundy  when  Scaggs  had 
gone. 

Bundy  shook  his  head. 

"  Maybe  all  the  snow  hasn't  melted,"  he  replied, 
vaguely. 

At  four  o'clock  Scaggs  reported  that  all  the 
freight  had  been  put  aboard  the  boat.  At  five 
minutes  after  four  a  messenger  boy  in  a  black 
rubber  slicker  brought  a  telegram  for  Margaret. 

313 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

The  mechanism  of  her  heart  stopped  and  then 
went  on  at  double  time. 

She  signed  the  book  in  a  tremor  of  excitement, 
and  slit  open  the  envelope  with  her  finger  so 
quickly  that  the  two  acts  were  part  of  one  opera- 
tion. The  date  line,  "  Pittsburgh,"  seemed  to  jump 
up  from  the  paper  as  she  spread  out  the  sheet  and 
endeavored  to  read  the  whole  text  at  one  glance. 

The  message  read : 

"  Will  finance  operation  per  arrangement 
already  outlined.  Samples  exceed  expecta- 
tions. Quick  action  necessary.  Am  leav- 
ing for  London  five  to-morrow  afternoon. 
Meet  me  New  York,  McAlpin  Hotel  nine 
A.  M." 

Margaret  stared  at  the  yellow  paper  for  a  full 
minute.  Then  she  banged  the  call  bell  that  sat  on 
her  desk.  Bundy  jumped. 

"  Now  what  ?  "  he  exclaimed. 

"  Going  to  New  York  to-morrow." 

She  showed  him  the  telegram.  For  the  next 
half  hour  things  happened  in  the  office.  Margaret 
always  liked  to  feel  that  without  her  Bundy  and 
Son  would  cease  to  exist,  yet  she  knew  perfectly 
well  that  the  organization  worked  so  now  that 
things  ran  along  smoothly  in  her  absence.  She 


THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

delegated  all  her  work  to  other  hands — and  ar- 
ranged things  so  there  would  be  no  loose  ends  left 
that  no  one  knew  how  to  take  care  of. 

"  There'll  be  plenty  of  time  on  our  hands  anyway 
to-morrow,"  observed  Scaggs.  "  The  boats  aren't 
going  to  run." 

"  Pooh ! "  she  replied.  "  You're  a  pessimist, 
Scaggs.  If  the  rain  stops  by  to-morrow " 

A  sudden  gale  of  wind  hurled  the  storm  cracking 
against  the  window  panes.  She  rose  and  looked 
anxiously  through  the  glass.  Presently  she  put  on 
her  raincoat  and  her  rubbers  and,  taking  her  um- 
brella, went  out  on  the  street.  The  sidewalks  and 
the  streets  ran  with  water.  She  did  not  go  home, 
but  ploughed  through  the  storm  to  the  water-front. 
The  river,  as  far  out  as  she  could  see  in  the  driving 
rain,  was  racing  by,  yellow  and  angry.  Limbs  of 
trees  and  debris  swirled  around  in  its  eddies.  It 
was  noticeably  higher.  A  skiff  that  had  been  made 
fast  to  a  ring  in  the  piling  of  the  wharf  had  risen 
above  the  ring  and  the  rope  was  pulling  the  bow 
under  water.  She  noticed  that  all  the  sailboats  and 
gasoline  launches  were  tied  up  at  the  wharves,  and 
that  even  the  tugs  were  not  venturing  out. 

She  went  home  and  changed  to  dry  clothes.  At 
315 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

seven  o'clock  just  as  they  were  about  to  sit  down  to 
dinner,  she  called  up  the  steamboat  office  and  found 
the  river  had  risen  eight  inches  since  five  o'clock. 
She  sat  down  at  the  table,  but  ate  very  little. 

"  Why  are  you  so  excited  about  this  ?  "  asked  Dora, 
wonderingly. 

"  David  is  on  his  island." 

The  other  woman  laid  down  her  knife. 

"  Well,  he  certainly  can  take  care  of  himself." 

"  I  don't  know  that  he  can.  Nobody  could  man- 
age a  canoe  on  that  river.  With  all  that  debris 
floating  down,  it's  too  dangerous  to  take  out  a  tug." 

"  Surely  the  Sawyers  would  think  of  him  without 
being  reminded." 

"They  would  if  they  were  there.  Perhaps  they 
have  not  returned." 

Xhe  dinner  proceeded  in  silence. 

"  I  think  I  will  telephone,"  Margaret  said. 

She  went  to  the  instrument  and  asked  for  the 
number  in  Bay  City.  The  operator  promised  to 
call  her.  At  the  end  of  fifteen  minutes  she  had  not 
called  her.  She  went  to  the  telephone  again.  The 
operator  said  they  were  having  difficulty  in  getting 
Bay  City.  After  another  wait  the  bell  rang  and 
Margaret  was  given  the  information  that  Mrs. 


THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

Sawyer  was  out  of  town  and  her  telephone  had 
been  temporarily  disconnected. 

She  returned  to  the  table. 

"  Certainly  he  wouldn't  stay  out  there  in  all  the  rain 
we  have  had  yesterday  and  to-day,"  observed  Dora. 

"  That  would  not  bother  him.  He  has  a  weather- 
tight  house  and  an  oil  stove.  He  would  rather 
enjoy  the  storm." 

The  maid  brought  coffee.  Margaret  stirred  hers 
mechanically.  Dora  gazed  at  her  keenly  and  in 
her  own  mind  arrived  at  a  certain  conclusion.  But 
she  said  nothing  about  it. 

"  Wouldn't  some  one  naturally  go  after  him  ? " 
she  inquired,  instead. 

"  I  doubt  if  he  knows  any  one  in  Bay  City  who 
would  be  aware  that  he  was  out  there." 

There  was  a  silence  for  a  while,  and  then  Mar- 
garet looked  up. 

"  Why  didn't  I  think  of  it  before  ?  "  she  exclaimed. 
"I'll  call  up  Evans." 

She  went  to  the  telephone  once  more.  There 
was  a  long  wait.  She  visited  the  instrument  again 
impatiently.  Finally  she  was  informed  that  the 
wires  were  down  and  it  was  impossible  to  get  con- 
nection with  Bay  City  at  all. 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Now  you've  done  your  best,"  said  Dora,  "  I 
shouldn't  think  about  it  any  more.  David  Bruce  is 
certainly  capable  of  taking  care  of  himself." 

Margaret  did  not  reply,  but  set  about  getting 
ready  to  take  the  night  train  for  New  York  to  keep 
her  appointment  with  Kimball.  She  put  on  her 
very  best  suit  and  her  very  best  hat  and  many  other 
things  that  were  best.  She  believed  firmly  that 
prosperous  clothes  were  a  business  asset,  and  she 
dressed  more  carefully  in  preparation  for  a  business 
conference  than  she  did  for  a  formal  dinner.  She 
packed  her  little  hand-bag  and  laid  out  her  raincoat 
and  umbrella. 

"  Are  you  going  on  the  ten  o'clock  train  ?  "  asked 
Dora. 

"  Yes." 

The  other  woman  held  both  her  hands. 

"  Don't  stay  away  long.  This  place  is  a  bam 
without  you." 

Margaret  kissed  her. 

"  Be  back  Thursday,"  she  replied. 

But  they  said  no  further  word  about  David. 

At  half-past  nine  a  taxicab  took  her  to  the  Severn 
Street  Station.  As  she  waited  for  the  train,  she 
heard  people  talking  about  the  high  water.  The 


river  had  risen  three  feet  since  half-past  two  in  the 
afternoon.  It  was  still  raining. 

The  train  pulled  in.  She  went  with  the  crowd 
out  to  the  wet  platform.  The  Pullman  conductor 
in  his  rubber  coat  and  rubber  covered  hat  recog- 
nized her  and  took  off  his  hat. 

"  Bay  City  sleeper  in  the  rear,"  he  said. 

She  stood  still  in  the  rain  looking  at  him. 

"  I  would  give  a  thousand  dollars  if  I  could  take 
it,"  she  found  herself  saying,  and  then  stepped 
aboard  his  car. 

She  did  not  go  to  bed  when  the  train  started. 
Instead  she  sat  down  by  a  window  at  the  end  of 
the  car  and  looked  out  at  the  rain.  She  had  not 
realized  until  just  then  that  she  wanted  to  go  to 
Bay  City.  She  was  able  to  convince  herself  when 
she  reasoned  it  out  that  David  would  certainly  take 
care  of  himself,  as  he  always  had.  Her  business 
was  of  too  unusual  a  nature  to  permit  of  any  halt. 
If  she  missed  this  opportunity,  it  would  be  months 
before  such  a  chance  would  come  again.  It  might 
never  come.  Now  was  the  most  important  moment 
of  her  life. 

This  was  the  reasoning  that  disposed  summarily, 
and  apparently  without  chance  for  appeal,  of  her  de- 

319 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

sire  to  help  him.  But  as  the  train  came  nearer  and 
nearer  the  point  beyond  which  it  would  be  impossible 
for  her  to  alter  her  plans  even  if  she  wanted  to,  she 
found  herself  torn  by  an  unexplained  agony  of  doubt. 
Something  told  her  that  the  man  was  in  danger  on 
his  island,  and  no  amount  of  reasoning  could  drive 
that  feeling  from  her  heart.  A  new,  a  strange,  an 
unbelievable  bond  held  her,  and  an  uncanny  con- 
sciousness of  disaster  was  in  her  mind,  as  if  the 
power  had  been  given  her  to  think  the  thoughts  of 
this  one  person  afar  off. 

She  tried  to  reason  herself  into  believing  that 
David  must  be  safe — that  he  certainly  would  not  have 
allowed  himself  to  be  caught  out  there  in  the  middle 
of  the  river.  But  the  cold  logic  of  it  was  that  that  is 
just  what  he  almost  certainly  would  have  done.  He 
would  scarcely  have  left  his  island  simply  because  of 
the  hard  rain,  since  he  knew  that  the  usual  spring 
freshet  had  come  and  gone.  He  would  not  have 
been  able  to  guess  that  this  was  the  one  year  out  of 
a  hundred  in  which  there  would  be  two  freshets. 
So  the  chances  were  that  he  would  have  sat  tight  in 
his  little  house  until  he  saw  the  danger,  and  then 
it  would  be  too  late  to  escape  it.  For  when  the  rise 

of  the  river  surrounded  him  and  the  water  ran  wild 

320 


THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

with  great  trees  and  logs  and  sections  of  wharves 
and  all  the  unrighteous  plunder  it  had  stolen  from 
its  new  banks  as  it  swept  on,  there  was  no  chance 
for  such  a  shell  of  a  boat  as  a  canvas  canoe,  even 
were  a  man  strong  enough  and  wily  enough  to  keep 
the  craft  on  its  course. 

Of  course  he  would  be  able  to  take  refuge  in 
one  of  the  trees ;  but  she  had  seen  trees  uprooted 
by  the  current  and  carried  on,  as  if  they  had  been 
but  twigs.  Furthermore,  how  much  exposure  of  that 
sort  could  a  person  stand  ?  Supposing  the  freshet 
had  surrounded  him  and  forced  him  to  take  to  the 
trees  at  five  in  the  afternoon,  he  would  now  have 
been  there  more  than  six  hours,  and  if  he  were  taken 
off  no  later  than  noon  the  next  day,  he  would  have 
been  through  a  period  of  exposure  and  cold  trying 
to  the  constitution  of  the  strongest  man. 

In  her  business  Margaret  knew  two  kinds  of  risks 
— one  the  risk  of  losing  where  the  chances  were  in 
favor  of  winning  and  where  if  one  did  lose  the  loss 
was  more  than  made  up  by  success  in  some  other 
quarter.  This  was  business.  Bundy  and  Son  took 
risks  like  that  every  day — in  fact,  every  time  they 
purchased  a  new  lot  of  goods.  The  other  kind  of 

risk  was  the  sort  in  which  if  the  man  lost  he  lost 

321 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

everything — that  is,  for  instance,  the  risk  of  loss  by 
fire  and  the  risk  of  bankruptcy.  A  prudent  business 
person  did  not  neglect  fire  insurance  nor  did  he 
spread  his  capital  out  too  thin.  For  if  he  did  and 
lost — he  lost  everything.  That  was  the  sort  of  risk 
a  man  could  not  take. 

Margaret  had  before  her  a  risk.  She  could  go  on 
to  New  York  under  the  assumption  that  David  must 
be  able  to  take  care  of  himself — she  could  take  that 
chance.  The  question  was — was  this  one  of  the 
risks  she  could  afford  to  take  ? 

There  was  no  thought  in  her  mind  of  deciding 
what  was  her  personal  relation  to  David.  She  had 
simply  jumped  across  that  whole  process  of  thought, 
when  she  had  allowed  the  fear  of  possible  danger  to 
him  to  interfere  with  her  peace  of  mind  and  to  shake 
her  decision  on  the  very  eve  of  great  success.  It  did 
not  occur  to  her  to  decide  why  she  wanted  to  give 
aid  to  him.  She  simply  wanted  to  do  it. 

The  only  question  she  was  trying  to  decide  was 
whether  she  could  give  that  aid — or  rather  whether 
she  could  afford  to  withhold  it.  Could  she  leave 
David  Bruce  and  go  to  New  York  to  reap  the  fruits 
of  her  labor?  The  train  rolled  out  upon  the  long 

bridge    over    the   West    Branch,    running    slowly. 

322 


THE  INVISIBLE  FORCE 

Something  like  a  hot  coal  burned  in  her  breast 
This  was  her  last  chance.  In  three  minutes  there 
would  be  no  deciding.  It  would  be  too  late. 

Below  her  in  the  ribbon  of  light  from  the  car  win- 
dows she  saw  the  yellow,  eddying  river,  racing  into 
the  darkness.  The  sight  of  it  fascinated  her.  She 
could  not  sit  still.  She  rose  and  went  out  into  the 
vestibule  between  the  two  cars.  She  looked  out 
through  the  panes  of  the  door.  She  saw  the  same 
turbulent,  tumbling  waters. 

The  brakes  ground  on  the  wheels  and  the  train 
stopped  at  the  station  on  the  far  side  of  the  river. 
The  porter,  who  came  through  and  opened  the 
vestibule  door  to  go  down  on  the  platform,  noted 
that  she  was  very  pale,  and  looked  at  her  again. 
She  held  her  hands  firmly  clasped.  A  jar  ran 
through  the  train  telling  her  the  Bay  City  sleeper 
was  being  removed  and  shifted  to  a  siding. 

It  was  but  a  few  seconds  now,  and  they  would 
be  gone.  A  shout  sounded  on  the  platform.  The 
bell-cord  above  her  grew  taut  and  then  flapped  noisily 
on  its  supports.  The  porter  waved  his  lantern. 
The  engine  puffed,  a  jar  ran  through  the  train  and 
the  cars  began  to  move. 

It  was  the  last  half-second.  She  saw  the  platform 
323 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

begin  to  slide  by ;  saw  the  porter  with  his  hand  on 
the  guard  picking  up  his  stool.  And  when  she  saw 
the  platform  move,  and  realized  that  it  was  her  last 
half  second,  she  grew  cold  all  over. 

"  It's  no  use.     I  can't  do  it." 

A  sudden  fright  seized  her.  Would  the  man  let 
her  off?  She  dashed  down  the  steps.  Her  only 
thought  was  to  leave  that  train.  The  porter  held 
both  handles. 

"  Quick,"  she  cried.     "  Let  me  off." 

He  hesitated.  She  struck  at  his  wrist  as  he  still 
held  the  bar.  The  train  gathered  speed.  In  a 
frenzy  of  excitement  she  shouted  to  him,  hardly 
knowing  what  she  said.  He  gazed  at  her  for  a 
moment  as  though  doubting  her  sanity.  Then  he 
lifted  her  bodily  from  the  car  and  set  her  down  on 
the  wet  platform  and,  running  after  the  steps,  swung 
himself  aboard  the  fast-moving  train. 

The  cars  rushed  by,  leaving  her  standing  alone  in 
the  downpour.  She  watched  the  green  lights  on  the 
rear  of  the  train,  growing  smaller  and  smaller,  and 
then  fading  into  the  rain.  She  pressed  her  lips 
together. 

"  Good-bye  for  that,"  she  said. 


324 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

SHE  sank  down  upon  the  wooden  bench,  crushed 
and  disappointed.  All  her  hopes  and  ambitions 
were  on  the  train — and  she  was  here  alone.  She 
had  paid  a  heavy  price,  but  it  was  for  the  comfort 
of  her  soul.  She  knew  from  the  present  quiet  beat- 
ing of  her  heart  that  she  would  have  paid  a  greater 
price  had  she  remained  upon  the  train.  At  first  she 
had  thought  it  was  a  sort  of  heroism  that  had  made 
her  turn  back  ;  but  now  it  was  apparent  that  of  two 
things  much  desired,  she  had  relinquished  the 
lesser. 

Her  plan  of  action  she  had  mapped  out  while 
fighting  the  question  over  on  the  car.  The  train  to 
Bay  City  left  at  four  o'clock.  It  was  now  midnight 
She  would  have  time  to  cross  the  bridge  over  the 
river,  with  the  object  of  finding  John  Sawyer's 
motor  boat  if  it  was  moored  there.  That  he  still 
owned  it  she  was  sure,  for  she  had  seen  him  in  it  a 
few  weeks  before  running  by  the  factory  at  Bay  City 
on  his  way  up  the  river.  In  such  weather  as  this  it 

325 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

would  scarcely  be  in  use.  The  chances  were  that  she 
would  find  the  boat  anchored  to  its  buoy.  If  it  were 
not,  she  would  have  time  to  return  and  take  the 
train. 

She  rose,  and  taking  advantage  of  the  solitude  of 
the  station  platform,  pinned  her  skirts  up  from  her 
ankles,  and  buttoned  her  raincoat  tightly  about  her. 
She  took  off  her  hat  and  gazed  at  it  doubtfully.  If 
she  left  it,  she  ran  an  even  chance  of  never  seeing  it 
again.  If  she  wore  it,  it  would  be  ruined.  The  hat 
was  a  spring  creation  and  was  made  of  straw.  This 
was  a  time  of  war  and  no  place  for  sentiment.  She 
calmly  tore  off  the  trimmings  and  pulled  the  naked 
and  ashamed  straw  bag  down  over  her  hair.  She 
stuffed  the  roses  and  ribbons  carefully  into  the 
pocket  of  her  raincoat. 

In  doing  this  she  discovered  a  small  electric 
flash-light  in  the  pocket.  It  was  the  property  of 
Bundy  and  Son.  They  used  it  to  look  at  things  in 
dark  corners  of  the  stock-room.  At  first  she  could 
not  figure  out  how  it  happened  to  be  there  ;  until  she 
remembered  that  she  had  taken  it  in  the  afternoon 
when  she  had  gone  across  the  alley  at  the  rear  of 
their  building  to  a  little  structure  in  which  they 

stored  gasoline. 

326 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

She  was  now  ready  to  start.  If  any  one  is  of  the 
opinion  that  crossing  over  a  quarter-mile  bridge 
upon  a  twelve-inch  plank  on  a  rainy,  dark-as-the- 
pit  night  such  as  that  was,  is  a  pleasant  prospect, 
he  is  mistaken.  Margaret  shivered  and  stood  upon 
the  brink  for  a  long  while  before  she  put  her  foot 
upon  that  board. 

The  weather  had  now  settled  down  to  a  steady, 
dismal  drizzle.  Without  the  aid  of  the  flash-lamp 
it  was  impossible  to  distinguish  between  the  foot- 
board and  the  crevices  on  either  side  of  it.  She  ad- 
justed the  little  switch  that  kept  the  light  burning 
all  the  time,  and  walked  grimly  ahead.  She  main- 
tained afterward  that  it  would  not  have  been  nearly 
so  nerve-racking  had  she  not  been  thinking  at  every 
step  that  she  might  have  to  walk  back.  She  could 
hear  the  gurgling  of  the  water  running  under  the 
bridge,  which  brought  up  thoughts  of  the  distance 
of  the  foot-board  above  the  flood. 

Margaret  pressed  on  doggedly.  Every  pier  she 
came  to  she  thought  must  be  the  opposite  shore. 
After  she  had  crossed  about  five  of  these  she  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  bridge  must  run  on  for- 
ever. She  tried  to  see  ahead  into  the  night,  but  the 
flash-light  was  blocked  by  the  falling  rain.  Her 

327 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

hat  dripped  with  rain.  The  rain  ran  from  her  coat 
upon  her  shoes,  which  oozed  with  water  as  she 
walked.  But  only  one  thing  made  any  difference. 
If  the  bridge  would  only  come  to  an  end !  Pres- 
ently she  stumbled  and  nearly  fell.  Her  heart  was 
in  her  mouth.  But  she  discovered  that  the  reason 
she  had  done  so  was  because  she  had  stepped  unex- 
pectedly upon  the  stone  ballast  of  the  track  at  the 
far  shore. 

After  that,  nothing  mattered.  She  felt  that  she 
could  go  through  anything  at  all.  Steep  banks, 
darkness,  mud,  rain,  water  underfoot — all  seemed 
like  safe  mediums  of  progress  compared  to  the 
bridge.  She  found  that  the  path  by  the  river  which 
she  and  David  had  walked  along  was  flooded. 
Wherever  possible,  therefore,  she  walked  among 
the  trees  higher  up ;  and  where  it  was  not  possible, 
she  waded  in  the  shallow  water  on  the  path.  This 
made  progress  slow.  She  was  so  long  about  it  that 
she  was  afraid  she  must  have  passed  the  spot  where 
the  little  boat  ought  to  lie. 

"One  thing  is  certain,"  she  said,  turning  the 
flash-light  upon  herself,  ruefully  ;  "  if  I  do  not  find 
the  boat,  I  shall  be  a  heartrending  spectacle  to  go 

to  Bay  City  by  train." 

328 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

And  just  then  she  stumbled  into  the  chain  that 
moored  it.  She  swung  her  light  out  into  the  stream 
and  there,  riding  comfortably  on  the  water,  appeared 
the  dim  outline  of  the  motor  boat. 

She  could  have  shouted  in  her  excitement.  She 
found  the  key  in  its  hiding  place  and  unfastened 
the  lock  that  held  the  chain  of  the  small  boat.  The 
water  here  was  not  running  so  swiftly  as  out  in  mid- 
stream, but  it  was  passing  by  too  rapidly  for  her  to 
make  the  launch  from  that  point.  She  caught  the 
boat  by  the  painter  and  dragged  it  up-stream  about 
thirty  or  forty  yards.  Getting  in,  she  seized  the 
oars  and  pulled  straight  out  from  the  shore.  The 
current  caught  the  boat  and  carried  it  down.  She 
pulled  with  all  her  power.  Her  electric  flash  caught 
the  launch  coming  toward  her  at  great  speed.  She 
took  one  mighty  pull  at  her  oars  and  then  ran  to 
the  bow.  Almost  immediately  the  boat  struck  the 
buoy  to  which  the  launch  was  moored,  swung 
around  stern  foremost  and,  side  scraping  side,  shot 
by  like  lightning. 

More  by  instinct  than  as  the  result  of  any  pres- 
ence of  mind,  she  grasped  wildly  at  the  larger  craft. 
Her  arms  encircled  a  brass  belaying  pin,  and  her 
fingers  caught  the  ledge  of  the  gunwale.  She 

329 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

leaped  while  there  was  yet  time  and  sprawled  upon 
the  deck,  half  aboard  and  half  overboard,  while  the 
little  boat  scudded  on  into  the  darkness. 

She  struggled  to  her  feet  and  stumbling  through 
the  darkness — her  flash  lamp  having  gone  down- 
stream with  the  smaller  boat — managed  finally  to 
get  the  tarpaulin  jacket  off  the  cockpit  and  to  enter 
the  cabin.  Here  presently  she  found  matches  and 
lighted  the  lamp  there. 

With  due  regard  for  her  clothes,  she  now  took 
off  the  outer  and  more  fragile  layer  of  these  and  de- 
posited them  with  care  upon  the  locker  seats.  Her 
beautiful  suit  had  been  well  protected  beneath  the 
raincoat.  Her  shoes  and  stockings  were  soaked. 
She  hung  them  up  by  the  engine  where  they  would 
dry  when  it  was  started,  under  the  supposition  of 
course  that  she  would  be  able  to  start  it.  Out  of 
the  locker  she  got  a  sweater,  a  pair  of  woolen  socks, 
unworn  but  many  sizes  too  large,  a  pair  of  rubber 
boots,  an  oilskin  slicker  and  sou'wester.  She  soon 
appeared  in  all  this  regalia.  She  considered  the 
question  of  a  pair  of  corduroy  trousers,  but  post- 
poned decision. 

She  found  the  gasoline  tank  of  the  engine  nearly 
half  full.  She  stood  before  the  machine  thought- 

330 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

fully  and  recalled  the  manner  of  starting  it,  as  David 
had  expounded  it.  The  starting  of  a  healthy 
gasoline  engine  is  a  simple  matter,  if  one  remembers 
to  turn  on  the  switch.  She  turned  on  the  switch — 
not  with  the  care-free  abandon  of  an  experienced 
machinist — but  gingerly,  as  if  she  conceded  the 
possibility  of  a  destructive  explosion  following  the 
operation.  She  waited.  All  remained  calm ;  and 
she  attacked  the  fly-wheel.  It  turned  a  quarter  turn 
and  stopped  as  if  against  a  rubber  cushion.  She 
tried  again  with  the  same  result.  The  machine  was 
very  temperamental.  It  required  coaxing.  She  did 
not  make  the  mistake  of  losing  her  temper  with  it 
and  hurting  its  feelings.  She  coaxed  it  amiably, 
soothingly,  but  withal  in  a  determined  manner,  thus 
gaining  its  respect  and  confidence.  And  the  engine, 
absorbing  her  amiability,  at  length  swallowed  the 
rubber  cushion,  thus  allowing  the  wheel  to  turn 
over,  and  was  immediately  seized  with  a  great  fit  of 
coughing,  which  presently  seemed  to  fall  into  the 
regular  motor-boat  purr,  as  the  wheel  turned  on 
regularly  and  swiftly. 

After  it  had  been  running  a  few  minutes,  she 
switched  on  the  electric  lights  in  the  cabin  and  on 
deck.  There  were  four  on  deck,  the  red  and  green 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

running  lights,  the  light  at  the  little  mast  head 
astern,  and  the  light  of  the  revolving  search  lamp. 

The  engine  was  now  running  free.  She  cast  off 
from  the  buoy  and  then  running  below,  turned  the 
lever  that  threw  it  in  gear.  The  propellor  caught 
the  water.  The  launch  headed  straight  for  the  shore 
and  destruction.  She  threw  herself  upon  the  wheel 
and  rolled  it  over.  The  boat  made  out  into  the 
river,  caught  the  current  first  abeam  and  then  astern 
and  raced  down-stream  with  power  and  current 
behind  it. 

The  difficulties  of  plain  motor-boat  management 
are  not  the  difficulties  of  automobile  driving.  In 
this  case  her  problem  was  to  steer  the  craft  along  a 
waterway  a  quarter  of  a  mile  wide  instead  of  along 
a  twenty-foot  road.  And  there  was  not  the  necessity 
of  stopping  and  starting  and  dropping  into  second 
speed  or  first  speed  or  any  of  the  long  ritual  of  tricks 
made  necessary  by  land  conditions.  The  engine  of 
the  launch  started,  she  had  only  to  keep  it  going 
generally  ahead  and  have  patience.  Both  of  which 
things  she  felt  she  was  capable  of  accomplishing 
without  undue  difficulty. 

Had  it  been  daylight  and  the  passing  shore  visible, 
she  might  have  been  frightened  at  their  headlong 

332 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

pace.  But  she  could  see  only  the  water  beside  her, 
and  from  that  it  appeared  that  they  were  merely 
running  comfortably  along. 

The  rain  came  down  steadily.  But  it  made  no 
difference  at  all  to  her.  She  was  so  encased  in  oil- 
skins that  it  ran  off  her  in  streams  as  if  she  had  been 
a  duck.  She  made  herself  as  comfortable  as  she 
could,  for  she  knew  she  had  a  long  journey  before 
her.  She  got  the  search-light  in  working  order  and 
was  able  to  see  things  about  her  sufficiently  well  so 
that  there  would  be  no  danger  of  her  running  ashore. 
Other  than  that  slight  amount  of  steering,  there  was 
nothing  for  her  to  do  for  the  next  few  hours  but  to 
sit  still  and  let  the  engine  and  the  current  carry 
her  on. 

It  was  a  long,  lonely  three  hours.  The  deadening 
murmur  of  the  storm  and  the  incessant  discharge  of 
the  engine  blotted  out  all  other  sound,  just  as  the 
night  blotted  out  all  the  world  about  her.  She  could 
see  nothing  but  the  deck  of  the  launch  and  a  little 
path  of  water  before  her  where  she  cut  into  the  dark- 
ness with  her  search-light.  It  was  as  if  she  were 
ploughing  ahead  alone  through  indeterminate  space 
— an  orbitless  star,  floating,  for  all  eye  and  ear 
could  tell,  midway  between  heaven  and  earth. 

333 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

Now  and  then  she  would  run  past  objects  floating 
in  the  water — limbs  of  trees,  boards,  boxes,  and  dark, 
strange  forms  that  seemed  like  creatures  blocking 
her  path.  By  the  time  she  sighted  them,  she  was  in 
the  midst  of  them  and  there  was  no  opportunity  to 
turn  aside.  It  was  like  shooting  rapids.  But  none 
of  the  objects  was  large,  and  when  the  launch  struck 
them  it  swept  them  harmlessly  aside. 

It  was  about  half-past  two  in  the  morning  when 
she  first  began  to  be  conscious  of  a  glow  in  the  sky 
off  the  starboard  bow.  This  was  Bay  City.  She 
was  weary.  Her  legs  ached  from  standing  by  the 
wheel.  Her  eyes  burned  from  watching  the  beam 
of  the  search-light.  Even  when  she  closed  them,  she 
still  saw  a  red  stripe  before  her.  Her  fingers  were 
stiff  from  cold  and  from  grasping  the  wheel.  In 
spite  of  her  loss  of  sleep,  however,  she  was  un- 
naturally wide  awake.  She  realized  that  nervous 
energy  was  covering  up  her  fatigue. 

The  launch  ran  on.  The  glow  grew  into  a  great 
patch  of  light.  For  the  first  time  she  began  to  be 
conscious  of  a  shore  line.  The  city  appeared  like  a 
long  strip  of  milky  way  with  here  and  there  a  star 
twinkling  through  it.  She  hardly  noticed  the  swift- 
ness with  which  she  came  into  view  of  it  and  sped 

334 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

by  it.  Had  it  been  daylight  and  had  she  been  able 
to  see  the  eddying,  muddy,  headlong  current  run- 
ning away  with  her  boat,  she  might  not  have  re- 
tained the  calm  that  now  possessed  her.  But  she 
was  not  yet  aware  of  the  speed  at  which  she  was 
going  nor  of  the  dangers  of  the  turbulent  waters. 

Ahead  she  caught  the  flash  of  the  lighthouse 
that  marked  the  channel  at  the  point  where  the 
streams  of  the  two  rivers  joined.  The  light  seemed 
to  be  coming  at  her  with  the  speed  of  an  express 
train.  Steering  straight  for  it  as  she  knew  she  must, 
her  eyes  became  dulled  from  looking  at  it.  She 
lost  her  sense  of  distance  and  was  shooting  right  at 
the  iron  structure  before  she  knew  it.  A  quick  turn 
of  the  wheel  threw  her  off  her  coqrse,  and  she  shot 
by  the  lighthouse,  the  side  of  the  launch  scraping 
the  iron  supports  as  she  passed. 

Almost  immediately  she  was  in  rough  water.  The 
current  from  the  larger  river  struck  her  abeam. 
The  boat  rolled,  and  the  exhaust  of  the  engine  was 
now  muffled  beneath  the  water  and  now  exploding 
with  redoubled  force  above  it.  She  could  feel  the 
craft  straining  under  her.  She  looked  astern  and 
found  the  lighthouse  was  slipping  up-stream.  At 
this  rate  she  would  soon  be  out  in  the  bay. 

335 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

She  threw  over  the  wheel  and  began  to  fight 
diagonally  up-stream.  Her  only  hope  lay  in  keep- 
ing a  course  due  east  from  the  light,  for  that  was 
where  the  island  lay.  If  she  missed  that  line,  she 
missed  her  only  chance,  groping  about  blindly  as 
she  was  in  the  darkness,  of  reaching  her  destination. 
It  was  a  trying  situation.  Straining  her  eyes  into 
the  night  she  could  see  nothing.  The  beam  of  her 
search-light  showed  only  a  short  path  of  falling  rain 
and  of  onrushing  water,  and  seemed  to  stop  then  as 
though  against  a  wall.  Behind  her  lay  the  light- 
house, her  only  star  of  hope. 

She  determined  not  to  swerve  from  her  easterly 
course.  She  deliberately  placed  herself  with  her 
back  to  the  bow  and  kept  the  light  due  west  astern 
by  the  compass.  It  was  an  approximate  operation, 
but  it  was  her  only  hope.  The  launch  was  now  mak- 
ing progress  somewhat  like  a  fiddler  crab,  her  bow 
pointing  southeast  to  offset  the  force  of  the  current 
and  her  general  direction  being  east.  The  search- 
light was  pointing  in  the  direction  from  which  the 
island  was  expected  to  appear. 

Presently  she  was  startled  by  hearing,  as  the 
engine  muffled  itself  under  the  waves,  a  shrill  call, 
such  as  a  man  makes  whistling  through  his  fingers. 

336 


THE  YELLOW  RIVER 

She  started  and  it  seemed  that  her  heart  stopped 
beating  for  a  minute.  She  cried  out  unavailingly. 
She  whirled  the  search-light  about,  but  could  see 
nothing  in  the  night.  At  greater  risk  than  she 
knew,  she  shut  off  her  engine  and  listened  again. 
She  seemed  to  feel  the  current  lift  the  boat  bodily 
and  carry  it  down-stream.  And  then  the  shrill  whistle 
sounded  again. 

She  strained  her  eyes,  and  there,  dimly  against 
the  glow  of  the  city,  floated  into  view,  as  she  was 
carried  by  in  the  current,  the  shadowy  silhouette  of 
the  island  trees,  growing  out  of  the  water. 

She  had  missed  the  island  and  run  by  it  on  the 
south,  and  was  now  on  the  far  side  of  it.  She  threw 
on  the  switch  and  turned  over  the  wheel.  The 
engine  was  hot  and  started  immediately.  It  seemed 
as  if  it  would  never  be  able  to  check  the  headway  the 
current  had  given  them.  She  saw  the  shadow  of  the 
trees  moving  and  moving  up-stream.  Presently  they 
stopped  moving.  Gradually  the  launch  began  gain- 
ing a  little  upon  them.  That  was  all  that  was  neces- 
sary. She  turned  the  wheel  a  little  and  the  boat, 
holding  its  own  against  the  current,  headed  slowly 
toward  the  trees. 

As  they  became  more  distinct,  she  threw  her 
337 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

search-light  among  them,  and  there,  sitting  on  a 
sort  of  platform  of  boards  protected  by  a  square 
canvas,  sat  a  figure  that  seemed  very  much  like 
David  Bruce.  And  a  voice  that  was  very  much  like 
his  voice  hailed  her.  And,  as  the  launch  worked 
nearer,  a  figure  that  was  his  beyond  a  doubt  stood 
in  the  glare  of  her  search-light. 

He  shouted  directions  to  her  over  the  noise  of  the 
engine,  and  presently  he  caught  the  bow  of  the 
launch  and  made  it  fast  to  the  trunk  of  the  tree. 
With  a  huge,  flat,  tarpaulin-covered  bundle  under 
his  arm,  he  lowered  himself  to  the  deck.  She 
turned  to  shut  off  the  engine.  Her  journey  was 
finished. 

She  rose,  and  to  her  astonishment  found  herself  in 
his  strong  embrace. 

A  wave  of  great  excitement  swept  over  her.  The 
rain  fell  gently,  pattering  on  the  deck,  and  splashing 
on  the  limbs  of  the  trees ;  the  water  rolled  swirling 
by ;  the  bright  light  of  the  search-light  glared  stead- 
ily ahead.  A  minute  passed — and  she  found  she 
had  uttered  no  reproof. 


338 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

STRAW-GRASPING 

PRESENTLY  they  went  in  out  of  the  rain. 
There  were  a  thousand  things  to  be  told. 
Each  wanted  to  know  the  history  of  the  other  and 
each  wanted  to  know  it  immediately.  But  she 
would  say  no  word  of  her  adventure  until  he  had 
told  her  about  his.  He  explained  briefly.  He  had 
been  working — he  did  not  say  at  what — inside  his 
little  portable  cottage,  and  had  been  so  absorbed 
that  he  did  not  realize  that  the  high  water  was  com- 
ing until  about  five  o'clock,  when  he  opened  the 
door  and  found  the  island  almost  completely  sub- 
merged. He  had  then  waded  through  the  water  to 
his  canoe  and  dragged  it  back  to  the  house.  There 
was  no  chance  in  the  world  for  a  canoe  in  that  water, 
so  he  had  made  it  fast,  and  taking  the  awning  that 
protected  the  entrance  to  his  cabin,  rigged  up  a  sort 
of  shelter  in  one  of  the  trees,  on  a  platform  he  had 
built  there  some  time  before.  He  had  wrapped  up 

339 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

his  work  in  a  waterproof  package  and  taken  it  with 
him.  He  had  also  taken  all  the  food  in  the  house. 
By  this  time  there  had  been  a  foot  of  water  over  the 
floor.  He  had  not  hoped  to  save  the  house,  and 
presently  a  log  of  wood,  coming  down  in  full  cry  on 
the  breast  of  the  stream,  had  gone  right  through  the 
walls  as  if  they  were  paper.  At  nine  o'clock  that 
night  every  piece  of  it  had  gone  down  into  the  bay. 

He  had  been  cooped  up  on  his  little  six  foot  square 
platform  from  nine  o'clock  on.  At  midnight  he  had 
seen  the  Baltimore  boat,  six  hours  late,  coming  up 
from  the  bay.  Its  flash-light  had  rested  directly  upon 
him  and  he  had  waved  and  shouted,  but  no  one  had 
seen  him.  He  had  watched  the  boat  make  the  land- 
ing and  simply  waited  with  a  dull  patience,  trying 
to  take  an  interest  in  speculating  whether  it  would 
tie  up  at  the  wharf  or  go  back  to  Baltimore. 

And  then  \  he  had  seen  the  lights  of  Margaret's 
launch  and  hope  had  grown  in  him  that  the  craft 
was  coming  for  him.  When  she  had  passed  close 
to  him  above  the  island,  he  had  recognized  the 
launch  and  had  put  his  fingers  to  his  mouth  and 
whistled — the  only  signal  he  could  make.  And 
when  she  had  worked  the  boat  close  to  him,  he  had 
recognized  her  at  once  even  in  the  dim  light. 

340 


STRAW-GRASPING 

"But  how,"  he  asked,  wondering,  "did  you  get 
the  launch  ?  " 

"  I  got  off  the  train — and  stole  it." 

He  studied  her  face  intently. 

"  Was  the  train  held  up  again  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  No.  I  was  going  to  New  York  and — I  was  wor- 
ried about  you." 

"Why  were  you  going  to  New  York — if  I  may 
ask?"  he  said,  at  length. 

"  Oh — just  to  see  a  man." 

He  frowned  in  a  troubled  sort  of  way.  She  knew 
he  was  slowly  piecing  together  the  story  of  her  ad- 
venture. 

"  What  man  ?  " 

"Don't  nag  me,  David  dear.  It  was  Mr.  Kim- 
ball." 

He  squared  his  shoulders. 

"  One  more  question,  please.  When  can  you  see 
him  again  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know,"  she  replied,  hesitating.  "  He 
sails  for  Europe  at  five  o'clock  to-morrow." 

"  I  see  what  you've  done,"  he  said,  finally. 

He  stood  there  for  a  moment  looking  down  at 
the  floor.  Then  he  strode  out  into  the  rain.  Her 
ambitions  were  his  own  ambitions.  He  was  anxious 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

to  have  her  succeed — not  because  that  meant  money 
to  her  but  because  he  wanted  her  to  accomplish 
what  she  had  been  striving  for.  And  now  she  had 
given  that  up  to  come  to  his  assistance.  Her  pluck 
and  courage  in  coming  made  him  fiercely  proud  of 
her,  but  he  was  sorry  that  she  had  not  gone  ahead 
and  accomplished  her  mission.  He  would  have 
been  doubly  glad  to  have  taken  his  chance  alone 
against  the  storm  and  tide  rather  than  have  her 
give  up  her  chance  of  success.  Yet  his  heart  was 
swelling  with  pride  that  she  had  given  it  up  for 
him. 

He  must  square  the  debt  somehow.  Since  she 
had  sacrificed  herself  for  him,  he  must  strain  every 
nerve  in  a  great  endeavor  to  give  her  back  what 
she  had  lost.  He  must  get  her  to  New  York  in 
time.  Gigantic  undertaking  for  a  man  stranded  in 
the  midst  of  a  roaring  flood  a  mile  from  the  nearest 
shore.  But  there  lay  the  Baltimore  boat  at  the 
dock. 

Presently  she  was  aware  that  he  had  cast  loose 
and  that  they  were  drifting  down-stream.  He  came 
into  the  cabin  and  threw  in  the  switch  to  start  the 
engine. 

"  What  time  does  Kimball  sail  ?  " 
342 


STRAW-GRASPING 

"  Five." 

She  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm. 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  she  asked. 

"  If  that  boat  over  there  runs,  I  am  going  to 
have  you  in  Baltimore  to-morrow  morning.  You 
will  be  in  New  York  in  time." 

He  put  all  possible  power  into  the  engine  and 
headed  the  boat,  as  fast  as  it  could  run  with  the 
current  abeam,  directly  for  the  lights  of  the  steamer 
they  could  see  in  the  distance,  lying  at  the  wharf — 
or  rather  that  David  could  see,  for  it  all  looked  like 
a  blur  to  Margaret.  But  he  had  seen  the  steamboat 
make  the  landing  and  its  position  was  engraved  on 
his  mind. 

"  Do  you  think  she  will  run  ? "  she  asked,  ex- 
citedly. 

"  I  know  she  will  run.  The  boat  was  delayed  by 
fog  to-day.  But  there  is  no  fog  now.  She  must 
get  back  to  Baltimore  as  soon  as  she  can.  She  is 
probably  loaded  with  freight  now." 

"  She  may  leave  any  minute  then  ?  " 

"  Any  minute,"  he  replied. 

Never  had  that  launch  seemed  so  slow.  Ap- 
parently, miles  of  water  separated  them  from  the 
lights  of  the  wharves.  And  the  steady  running  of 

343 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

the  little  boat  seemed  to  bring  them  no  nearer.  She 
would  have  said  they  were  anchored  where  they 
were,  if  she  had  not  known  they  were  running  free. 
There  was  nothing  they  could  do  to  help  it  along. 
They  had  simply  to  be  patient  and  wait. 

Presently,  when  it  seemed  that  they  actually  were 
making  progress  and  they  had  come  so  much 
nearer  the  city  that  she  could  distinguish  the  shore 
and  the  big  boat  lying  at  the  wharf,  the  long  finger 
of  a  search-light  shot  out  from  her  pilot  house. 

"  Look  at  that,"  David  growled. 

"  What  does  that  mean  ?  " 

"  It  means  that  she  is  going  to  start.  But  we  still 
have  a  chance,"  he  added,  desperately. 

He  tried  to  turn  a  little  more  power  into  the 
cylinder,  in  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope.  Shoreward  they 
heard  the  boat  blow  three  long  blasts  on  her  whistle. 
He  sank  down  on  the  seat  and  held  the  wheel  in 
one  hand. 

"  That's  all,"  he  said. 

The  white  light  swept  the  river,  the  jingle  of  the 
engine  bell  floated  over  the  water,  and  the  steamer 
slid  slowly  out  from  the  wharf.  They  were  now 
about  half  a  mile  away.  If  they  had  had  five  min- 
utes more,  they  might  have  made  it. 

344 


STRAW-GRASPING 

They  sat  dejectedly,  watching  the  big  craft  creep- 
ing toward  them.  David  at  length  rose. 

"  We'll  make  one  more  trial,"  he  said. 

He  cut  down  the  gasoline  flow  in  the  engine,  and 
turned  the  launch's  bow  down-stream.  The  current 
caught  them  and  carried  them  along  at  a  wild  pace. 
Now  and  then  the  search-light  of  the  big  steamer 
astern  moved  over  the  river  and  rested  on  them  for 
a  moment.  The  rain  had  stopped,  and  it  was  pos- 
sible to  see  more  clearly  the  world  round  about. 
But  in  contrast  to  the  lighted  city  ashore,  they  were 
running  into  pitch  blackness  ahead.  If  there  were 
any  place  where  the  world  shelved  off  and  dropped 
into  bottomless  space,  Margaret  would  have  said  it 
was  right  there  out  in  that  darkness.  She  did  not 
understand  what  he  was  about  to  do,  but  there  was 
such  an  air  of  absolute  desperation  in  his  face  that 
she  did  not  dare  to  ask  him. 

They  were  right  in  the  path  of  the  oncoming 
steamer.  She  could  see  it  dead  astern,  growing 
larger  and  larger.  Now  she  could  hear  the  pound- 
ing of  its  engines,  and  see  the  cloud  of  black  smoke 
blown  shorewards  from  its  funnel.  The  search-light 
still  felt  about  along  the  shore  and  the  water,  and 
now  and  then  rested  inquiringly  on  the  little  launch. 

345 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"They  will  run  us  down,"  she  cried. 

"  Anything  to  attract  their  attention,"  was  all  he 
said. 

Two  hoarse  blasts  burst  from  the  siren  of  the 
steamer.  The  boat  was  so  near  that  it  seemed  to 
tower  above  them  like  a  mountain.  David  seized 
the  lanyard  of  a  pneumatic  whistle.  Its  shrill  tones 
split  the  night.  He  held  doggedly  to  it. 

"  They'll  have  to  stop,"  he  cried. 

"  To  take  us  aboard  ? "  she  asked. 

"  Yes." 

She  gazed  at  him  in  astonishment. 

"  But  what  will  you  do  with  the  launch  ?  " 

He  took  a  fresh  grip  on  the  whistle  lanyard. 

"Cut  it  adrift.  I'll  buy  John  two  like  it  if  we 
get  aboard." 

The  search-light  of  the  steamer  was  on  the  launch. 
And  then  she  heard  the  stroke  of  the  engine  room 
bell.  The  engines  of  the  big  boat  stopped.  A 
dozen  or  so  heads  appeared  below  at  the  gangways. 
The  bell  struck  again.  The  big  screws  reversed, 
churning  the  water. 

"Take  us  aboard,"  shouted  David,  between  his 
hands. 

The  steamer  slid  gently  alongside.  A  line  was 
346 


STRAW-GRASPING 

thrown  out  which  he  made  fast.  Margaret  looked 
up  at  the  row  of  curious  faces  at  the  gangway. 

"  There  is  one  of  the  laborers  at  our  factory," 
she  exclaimed,  hardly  knowing  what  she  said. 

"  Which  one  ?  "  asked  David,  quickly. 

She  pointed  him  out.  Then  she  dashed  in  for 
the  clothes  in  the  cabin  and  was  lifted,  bundle  and 
all,  up  to  the  deck.  David  followed,  with  his  own 
package.  He  turned  to  the  man  Margaret  had 
pointed  out  and  put  a  yellow  twenty-dollar  bill  in 
his  hand. 

"  Take  that  boat  ashore  for  Miss  York,"  he  said. 

Without  hesitation  the  man  leaped  in  and  cast  off 
the  line. 

The  bell  rang  in  the  engine  room.  The  screws 
began  to  turn.  The  water  piled  up  at  the  bow  and 
foamed  along  the  sides.  A  jingle  of  the  bell  below. 
The  engines  started  to  pound  and  the  steamer 
plunged  ahead  at  full  speed. 


347 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

EVEN 

AT  seven  o'clock  the  next  morning  Margaret 
awoke.  But  the  bedraggled,  wet,  booted  boy- 
girl  who  had  entered  the  stateroom  the  night  before 
never  left  it  A  maid,  an  electric  iron,  needles  and 
thread,  shoe  polish,  whisk  brooms  and  a  little  hard 
work  combined  to  dispatch  that  lady  without  shrift 
and  to  substitute  for  her  the  identical  Margaret  York 
who  had  boarded  the  train  the  night  before  bound 
for  New  York — roses  on  her  hat,  lustre  on  her  shoes, 
creases  gone  from  her  suit,  lace  and  linen  smooth 
and  white.  She  surveyed  herself  contentedly  in  the 
glass  and  went  out  on  deck.  David  was  there. 
She  smiled  when  she  saw  he  had  undergone  a 
similar  transformation. 

"I  know,"  she  said,  surveying  him  approvingly, 
"  that  you  must  have  had  a  new  suit  of  clothes  in 
that  precious  bundle  of  yours." 

"  Not  at  all,"  he  replied.  "  I  borrowed  a  clean 
collar  from  the  purser." 

348 


EVEN 

"  But  what  was  in  the  bundle  ?" 

He  looked  at  her  fixedly. 

"  That  was  our  future  livelihood." 

"  Ours,"  she  repeated.  Then  she  said  it  again  as 
though  fixing  the  idea  in  her  mind. 

He  smiled.  They  had  wandered  up  to  the  upper 
deck  and  were  sitting  abaft  the  smoke-stack — a  posi- 
tion very  conspicuous  from  points  along  the  distant 
shore,  but  secluded  as  far  as  the  boat  itself  was 
concerned.  He  took  her  hand.  She  looked  up  at 
him  with  a  pretense  of  astonishment  in  her  eyes, 
and  a  faint,  provoking  smile  on  her  lips.  He  seized 
her  in  his  arms  and — glorious  privilege — kissed  her 
lips. 

"You  feel  you  have  the  right  to  do  that  now 
whenever  you  want  to  ?  "  she  asked,  presently. 

"  Yes.     Don't  you  think  so  ?  " 

She  took  off  her  seal  ring  and  slipped  it  idly  on 
his  finger. 

"  Perhaps  you  have,"  she  replied. 

The  boat  ploughed  on.  The  smoke  from  her  fun- 
nel hung  low  over  the  water,  and  a  wide  path  astern 
marked  the  road  over  which  they  had  traveled. 

"  When  you  marry  me "  he  began. 

She  raised  her  brows  in  surprise. 
349 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

"  Oh,"  she  exclaimed,  "am  I  to  do  that?" 

"  Beyond  a  doubt." 

"I  hadn't  been  asked,"  she  explained.  "  I  didn't 
know  about  it." 

"  It's  all  settled." 

"  Thank  you,"  she  observed. 

"  You  are  an  imp,"  he  asserted.  "  I'll  ask  you 
now.  Will  you  marry  me  ?  " 

"  Are  you  a  good  catch  ?  " 

"  The  best  there  is.  I  am  good-tempered,  under- 
stand and  obey  when  spoken  to  in  English,  French 
or  German,  would  not  beat  or  throw  anything 
heavy  at  a  lady  unless  provoked,  earned  thirty- 
five  hundred  dollars  in  the  past  year " 

She  took  his  chin  in  her  hands  and  turned  his  face 
to  her. 

"  What  was  that  last  statement  ? "  she  asked, 
wonderingly. 

He  repeated  it.     Her  eyes  grew  bright. 

"  How  did  you  earn  it  ?  "  she  asked. 

He  told  her  the  whole  story,  ending  up  with  the 
disclosure  of  the  contents  of  his  precious  package. 

"  I  am  proud  of  you,"  she  said. 

A  long  while  afterward  he  said  : 

"  I  was  about  to  ask  you  some  time  ago  whether 

350 


EVEN 

in  event  of  my  marrying  you  you  would  still  con- 
tinue in  your  business." 

"  No,"  she  replied,  immediately. 

She  gazed  out  at  the  wake  of  the  ship,  far  astern. 

"  My  business,"  she  went  on,  "  has  been  an  im- 
portant and  absorbing  thing  to  me.  I  do  not  give 
it  up  without  regret.  But  I  know  that  I  want  you  " 
— she  slid  her  hand  through  his  arm — "  and  all  that 
you  will  mean  to  me — more  than  I  want  the  busi- 
ness. I  am  giving  up  the  lesser  for  the  greater." 

She  paused.     His  hand  closed  upon  hers. 

"  I  would  not  lay  this  down  as  a  course  for  every 
one  to  follow,"  she  said,  presently.  "  But  it  is  what 
I  want." 

He  drew  her  closer  to  him. 

"  I  am  sorry  that  you  have  to  make  such  a  sacri- 
fice," he  said  in  a  low  tone. 

She  did  not  speak  for  some  time. 

"  I  am  not  so  sure,"  she  replied,  "  that  it  is  wholly 
a  sacrifice.  Success  in  business  is  a  selfish  aim.  I 
might  grow  to  be  as  self-centered  and  mechanically 
inhuman  as  Mr.  Potter.  His  business  sense  is  not 
diluted  by  any  such  deleterious  ingredients  as  kind- 
ness, consideration  and  love  for  his  fellow-men 
And  he  has  grown  that  way  by  centering  every 


OUR  MISS  YORK 

thought,  every  ambition,  and  every  energy  upon 
business  alone.  He  is  the  extreme  example.  But 
I  might  be  proceeding  in  that  direction." 

She  rested  her  head  against  the  sleeve  of  his  coat. 

"  And,"  she  whispered,  "  there  is  no  danger  now 
of  my  home  being  a  mere  temple  to  my  success,  as 
poor  Dora's  is,  with  nothing  in  it  she  can  love." 

The  whistle  above  them  blew  twice.  She  started  ; 
but  he  held  her  tightly.  A  little  tug  ploughed  by. 
The  man  at  the  wheel  looked  curiously  at  them,  but 
they  saw  neither  him  nor  his  craft. 

He  drew  her  closer  to  him. 

"  That's  the  kind  of  wife  I  want." 

Presently  he  said  : 

"  Since  you  are  giving  up  your  business  life,  I  am 
glad  your  last  shot  is  to  be  on  the  bull's-eye.  This 
boat  gets  to  Baltimore  at  eight  o'clock.  You  can 
be  in  New  York  by  one.  You  will  see  your  man 
after  all." 

Her  eyes  shone  with  excitement.  Then  a  softer 
look  crept  into  her  face.  She  glanced  up  at  him, 
smiling. 

"  My  man  ? "  she  said,  with  a  whimsical  gentle- 
ness. "  I  am  seeing  him  now." 


352 


p.i.r  mil  inn  inn  Km  mi)  Hug  mi  mi 

A     000  051  451     3 


AND&RUSSEI 

s  and  Stationery 
2  W.  6th  ST. 
"  ANGELES 


